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MORAL GALLANTRY. 



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MORAL GALLANTRY 

A DISCOURSE, 



ADDRESSED TO 



THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY 

OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

WITH OTHER 



BY THE LATE 



SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, 

OF ROSEHAUGH, 

'• ADVOCATE TO KING CHARLES II. AND KING JAMES VII. 



They weary themselves to commit iniquity. Jer. ix. 5. 

Though God did not know, nor men would not punish Vice, yet would 
I not commit it, so mean a thing is Vice. Seneca; 



LONDON: 

T. Hamilton, Paternoster-Row, B. J. Holdsworth, 

St. Paul's Churchyard, and J. Nisbet, Castle-street, Oxford-street ; 

David Brown, 6, South St. Andre w's-street, W. Oliphant, South Bridge, 

James Robertson, Parliament-square, Edinburgh; and 

Jackson & Orr, 144, Trongate, Glasgow. 

1821. 






© 



CHAPMAN, PRINTER, GLASGOW. 



TO THE 



NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 

HAVING lighted this, though the smallest and dimmest 
of virtue's torches, at honour's purest flame ; I thought it 
unsuitable to place it under the bushel of a private protec- 
tion ; but rather to fix it upon such a conspicuous elevation 
as your exalted names ; that virtue might launch out from 
thence its glorious beams more radiantly; and the better 
direct those who intend to be led by it. Narrower souls than 
yours have not room enough to lodge such vast thoughts, as 
virtue and honour should inspire : and that which raised you 
to that height which deserves this compliment from virtue, 
does deserve that ye should not, when ye have attained to 
that height, neglect its address, though sent you by the 
meanest of its and your servants. 

Ye may (My Lords and Gentlemen) make yourselves il- 
lustrious by your virtue ; and which is yet noble (because 
more extensive) ye may illustrate virtue by your greatness ; 
and as the impressa of a great prince makes gold more cur- 
rent, though not more pure ; so your patrociny and example 
may render virtue more fashionable and useful, than now it 
is. Undervalued virtue makes then its application to vou, 



vi TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 

as to those whom, or whose predecessors it hath obliged ; and 
persecuted virtue deserves your patronage, as rewarded vir- 
tue is worthy of your imitation. And seeing it did raise 
your families, and offers still to raise monuments for your 
memory ; ye do in that assistance but pay your debt, and 
buy fame from succeeding ages. And as what is engraven 
upon growing trees does enlarge itself as the tree rises ; so 
virtue will be serious to advance you, knowing that it will 
receive extension accordingly as ye are promoted. Virtue 
is nothing else, but the exercise of these principles, which 
respect the universal good of others ; and therefore nature 
out of kindness to its own productions, and mankind in fa- 
vour to their own interests, have ennobled and adored such 
as were strict observers of those. The only secure and noble 
way then to be admired and honoured, is to be virtuous ; 
this will make you, as it did Augustus, the ornament of your 
age ; and as it did Titus Vespasian, the delight of mankind. 
This is (though to my regret) the way to be nobly singular^ 
and truly great. For men follow you, when ye are vicious, 
in compliment to their own depraved humours ; but when 
they shall assimilate themselves to you hi your virtues, they 
will show truly their dependance ; and that they follow you, 
and not their own inclinations. In vice ye but follow the 
mode of others ; but in re-entering virtue into the bon-grace 
of the world, ye will be leaders : by this your lives will be- 
come patterns, and your sentences laws to posterity ; who 
shall inquire into your actions, not only that they may ad- 
mire, but (which is more) that they may imitate you in them. 
I intend not by this discourse (My Lords and Gentlemen) 
that all virtues should shrink into the narrowness of a cell, 
or philosopher's gown : no, no ; public virtues are in their 
extension, as much preferable to private, as the one place is 
more august than the other ; of which to give you but one 
instance (for the principle is too well founded to need more) ; 
there is more virtue in relieving the oppressed, than in ab- 



TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. vii 

staining from oppression ; for that comprehends this, and 
adds to it the nobleness of courage, and the humanity of 
compassion. The one is the employment of philosophers, 
but the other of that omnipotent God, whom these philoso- 
phers with trembling adore : in the one we vanquish, but in 
the other we only fly, temptations. Virtue has employment 
for you, great souls, as well as for retired contemplators ; 
and though justice, temperance, and those virtues wherein 
none share with you, be more intrinsically nobler than the 
achieving the greatest victories, wherein fate, soldiers and 
accidents, challenge an interest ; yet virtue loves to bestow 
laurels as well as bays ; and hath its heroes, as well as philo- 
sophers. Rouse up then your native courage, and let it 
overcome all things, except your clemency ; and fear noth- 
ing but to stain your innocence ; undervalue your ancestors 
no otherwise, than by thinking their actions too small a pat- 
tern for your designs ; and assist your Prince, till he make 
the world (which is washed by the sea on all quarters) that 
isle which should acknowledge his sceptre. Your time makes 
the richest part of the public's treasure ; and every hour ye 
mispend of that, is sacrilegious theft committed against your 
country. Throw not then so much time away (though some 
be allowable) in hunting and hawking, which are not the 
noblest exercises, seeing they favour always the strongest, 
and do incline men (though surdly) to oppression and cruel- 
ty ; (for which reason, I believe, Nimrod, the first tyrant, is 
in Scripture observed to have been a mighty hunter;) and 
with Lucullus, that glorious Roman, think it the noblest 
hunting to pursue malefactors by justice in peace, and irre- 
claimable enemies by armies in war. Raise siege from before 
these coy ladies, (I speak not of the nobler sort, for to court 
such will oblige you to learn wit, liberality, patience and 
courage,) who do heighten their obstinacy, of design to make 
you lengthen your pursuits, and lay it down before these 
strong cities, which are by no forced metaphor called the 



viii TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. 

Mistress of the World ; level their proud walls, when they 
refuse your just commands, with the ground whereon they 
stand, and leave it as a doubt to your posterity, when they 
see their ruins, to judge whether your fury, or the thunder, 
has lighted there. But, if ye will justify your compliments 
to deserving beauties, employ your courage, as well as affec- 
tion, in their service ; (for till then ye serve them up but by 
halves.) And as Caesar at his parting, told Cleopatra, Think 
yourselves unworthy of them, till ye have raised your own 
value by such exploits as courage has made great, and virtue 
has made generous. Court them, as he did her, with no 
other serenades than the pleasant noise of your victories ; 
and after ye have returned, covered not with perfumes or 
tissue, but with deserved and blossoming laurels ; then that 
same virtuous courage, which hath forced a passage through 
walls and ramparts, (piercing where shot of cannon lan- 
guished, or gave back,) will find an entry into the hardest 
heart ; which, if it yield not to those gallant importunities 
of fate and fame, it is certainly more unworthy of your pains, 
than ye of its choice. But forget not amidst all your tro- 
phies, rather to chastise pride, than to be proud of any your 
plumpest successes; (which become cheats, not victories, 
when men are vain of them ;) for by so doing you shall be- 
come vassals to it. Whilst ye toil to enslave others to you, 
endeavour rather to deserve, than to court, fame : for in the 
one case, ye will make it your trumpet ; whereas in the 
other, it will become your imperious mistress, and ye will 
thus oblige it to follow you ; whereas otherwise you may 
weary yourselves in following it. The noblest kind of vanity 
is to do good, not to please others, or to expect a reward 
from them ; and fame is nothing else, but to do so of de- 
sign to gratify your own gallant inclinations, judging that 
the having done what is good and great, is the noblest re- 
ward of both ; and scattering, like the sun, equal light, when 
men look, or look not upon it. The noblest kind of detrac- 



TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. ix 

fcion, is to lessen those who rival your virtue, not by obscur- 
ing their light, as the dull earth eclipses the moon ; but by 
outshining it, as the sun renders all these other stars incon- 
spicuous, which shine, but appear not at the same time with 
it ; raise your spirits, by these heroic exploits, to so generous 
a pitch, that ye need not think heaven itself too high for 
you ; and as if all things here below were too unworthy a 
reward for that courage, to which all those things do at last 
stoop ; attempt heaven, (if ye will be truly courageous) which 
the Scripture tells us is taken by violence, and the violent take it 
by force. And when virtue hath made you too great for this 
lower world, the acclamations and plaudits of such as consi- 
der the heroicness and justice of your actions, shall be driven 
upwards with such zeal and ardour, that they shall (as it 
were) rent the heavens, to clear an entry for you there? 
where, when ye are mounted, though Caesar or Augustus, 
Alexander or Antoninus, were adorning the skies, trans- 
formed into stars, as their adorers vainly imagined, yet we 
may with pity look down upon them, as spangles, which at 
best do but embroider the outside of that canopy whereupon 
ye are to trample. Ye shall there have pleasure, to see our 
blessed Saviour intercede for such as were virtuous, and wel- 
come such as come there under that winning character ; and 
shall from these lofty seats see such terrestrial souls, as by 
their love to the earth, were united and transformed into it, 
burn in those flames, which took fire first from the heat of 
their lusts here ; which though it be an insupportable pun- 
ishment, yet yields in horror to those checks they shall re- 
ceive from their conscience, for having undervalued, or op- 
pressed, that virtue which I here recommend. 



THE 



AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY. 



THOUGH I can by no other calculation than that of my 
sins, be found to be old ; yet in that small parcel of time 
which I have already transacted, I have by my own practice 
been so criminal, and by my example adopted so many of 
other men's sins into the number of my own, that though I 
should spend the residue of my allowance without one error, 
(which is equally impossible and desirable,) yet that negative 
goodness being a duty in itself, could expiate my foregoing 
sins no more, than the not contracting new debts can be 
accounted a payment of the old. The consideration of 
which prevailed with me to endeavour to reclaim others 
from their vices by discourses of this nature; that in their 
proselyted practice I might be virtuous, as I have been vi- 
cious in the practice of such as have followed my example : 
and that I might, in the time they should employ well, re- 
deem what I myself had so misspent. In order to which, I 
did resolve to address myself to the Nobility and Gentry, as to 
those whose reason was best illuminated ; and by prevailing 
with whom, the world (who imitates them, as they depend 
upon them) may be most compendiously gained to the pro- 
fession of philosophy ; and to such as have most leisure to 
reflect upon what is offered, and fewest temptations to ab- 



THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY, xi 

atract them from obeying their own persuasions. And as 
physicians do judge their medicaments will be most success- 
ful, when they rather second than force nature ; so I resolved 
to use the assistance of their own inclinations, in my dis- 
courses to them ; laying aside an enemy, and gaining thus 
a friend, by one and the same task. Wherefore finding that 
most of them were either taken by an itch for honour or a 
love to ease, I have fitted their humours with two discourses; 
in the one whereof, I endeavour to prove, That nothing is so 
mean as Vice ; and in the next I shall prove, That there is no- 
thing so easy as to be Virtuous. I had, I confess, some thoughts 
of this discourse, when I first undertook the defence of Soli- 
tude ,- but I thought it fit to acquaint myself with writing, 
by writing to private persons, before I attempted to write to 
such as were of a more elevated condition : and that it was 
fit to invite all men first to solitude ; which I prefer as the 
securest harbour of virtue. But if some would pursue a pub- 
lic life, as the more noble, I thought it fit to demonstrate to 
them, that there is nothing truly noble, but what is sincerely 
virtuous. I doubt not but some will, out of mistake, (I hope 
few will, out of malice,) think, that the writing upon such 
foreign subjects, binds this double guilt upon me, That I 
desert my own employment, and do invade what belongs to 
those of another profession. But if we number the hours 
that are spent in gaming, drinking, or bodily exercises, (at 
none of which I am dexterous); if we consider what time is 
spent in journeys, and in attending the tides and returns of 
affairs, we will find many more vacant interludes, than are 
sufficient for writing ten sheets of paper in two years space ; 
especially upon a subject which requires no reading, and 
wherein no man can write happily, but he who writes his 
own thoughts. "With which, pardon me, to think him a 
sober wit, who cannot fill one sheet in three hours ; by which 
calculation, there need go only thirty select hours to ten 
sheets : and his life is most usuriously employed, who cannot 



xii THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN AND APOLOGY. 

spare so many out of two years to his divertisements ; espe- 
cially, where the materials are such daily observations as are 
thrust upon me, and all others, by our living in the world ; 
and are so orthodox and undeniable, that an ordinary dress 
cannot but make them acceptable. And so few (I may say, 
none) have written upon the subject, that I am not put to 
forge somewhat that may be new. But whatever others 
judge of this, or me, I find that it is a part of my employ- 
ment, as a man and Christian, to plead for virtue against 
vice. And really, as a barrister, few subjects will employ 
more my invention, or better more my unlaboured elo- 
quence, than this can do. And I find, that both by writing 
and speaking Moral Philosophy, I may contract a kindness 
for virtue ; seeing such as repeat a lie, with almost any fre- 
quency, do at least really believe it. Neither is there any 
thing more natural, than to have much kindness for either 
those persons, or sciences, wherewith we are daily conver- 
sant : and by this profession and debate, I am obliged (though 
I fear that I satisfy not that obligation) by a new and strong 
tie to be virtuous, lest I else be inconsequential to my own 
principles, and so be reputed a fool, either in not following 
what I commend, or in commending so much, what by my 
practice I declare is not worth the being followed. And 
therefore if I cannot pleasure others, (which is my great aim, 
and will yield me great satisfaction,) I will at least profit 
myself: which, because it is more independent, is therefore 
more noble ; and so will suit best with my subject, though 
the other would suit better with my desires. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



BY 



THE EDITOR. 



The intrinsic merit of the following Essays will 
apologize for their republication. They are now 
become extremely scarce, and are only to be found 
in the Collection of the Author's Works, in two 
large folio volumes. 

Should they meet that favourable reception to 
which they are so justly entitled, the Editor intends 
to republish a uniform edition of the Authors 
Moral Essays, accompanied by a short Biographi- 
cal Memoir. 



Contents. 



Page 
Moral Gallantry, a Discourse, &c 1 

Moral Paradox 77 

Consolation against Calumnies .,133 

Paraphrase on the CIV. Psalm — ~~» ~~ 155 



MORAL GALLANTRY 



A DISCOURSE, ENDEAVOURING TO PROVE, THAT 
POINT OF HONOUR OBLIGES MEN TO BE VIR- 
TUOUS ! AND THAT THERE IS NOTHING SO 
MEAN AS VICE, OR SO UNWORTHY OF A GEN- 
TLEMAN. 

JdY how much the more the world grows older, 
by so much (like such as wax old) its light grows 
dimmer; and in this twilight of its declining age, 
it too frequently mistakes the colours of good and 
evil; and not infrequently believes that to be the 
body, which is but its shadow. But amongst all 
its errors, those which concern Honour, are the 
most (because conspicuous, therefore) dangerous; 
every fault being here an original sin, and be- 
coming, because of the authority of the offender, 
a law, rather than an example. Some conceive 



2 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

themselves obliged in honour, to endeavour to 
be second to none; and therefore, to overturn 
all who are their superiors : others to think every 
thing just, whereby they may repay (though to 
the ruin of public justice) the favours done to 
their private persons, or fortunes. Some imagine, 
that they are in honour bound to live at the rate, 
and maintain the grandeur of their predecessors, 
though at the expense of their starving creditors; 
(obedient to nature in nothing oftimes, but in 
this fantastic keeping of their ranks ;) and there 
want not many who judge it derogatory to theirs, 
to acknowledge these errors of which they stand 
convinced. Young gallants likewise look upon 
virtue, as that which confines too narrowly their 
inclinations; judging every thing mean, which 
falls short of all the length, to which power or 
fancy can stretch itself; and as a genteel wit 
hath handsomely expressed it, they believe that, 

Honour is nothing but an itch of blood; 
A great desire to be extravagantly good. 

And thus whilst every man mistakes his fancy 
for his honour, they make honour to be like the 
wind; (from which at that rate it doth little dif- 
fer ;) than which nothing sounds higher, and yet 
nothing is less understood. To vindicate honour 
from these aspersions, and reclaim persons other- 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 3 

wise noble from these errors, I have undertaken 
this discourse: the nobleness of whose subject 
deserves, that it had been illuminated by the 
victorious hand of mighty Ccesar; and to have 
been writ by a quill plucked from the wing of 
Fame. But I hope, the readers will consider, 
that seeing I am able to say so much upon it, 
that more sublime wits would be able to say 
much more. And as in refining of metals, the 
first workmen require usually least skill; so I 
hope, that after 1 have digged up, with rather 
pains than art, the first ore, it will hereafter be 
refined by some happier hand. 

I have in great esteem those honours which 
are derived from ancestors ; (though that be, to 
be great by our mother's labours, rather than 
our own,) and to those which princes bestow; 
(though that be but to be gallant in livery,) and 
I believe that we may justly interpret Nebuch- 
adnezzar's image (whereof the head is said to 
have been of gold, the breast silver, and the 
belly brass, the legs iron, and the feet clay) to 
be a hieroglyphic of this lower world, wherein 
nature hath impressed the several ranks of man- 
kind with gradual advantages suitable to their 
respective employments ; the meaner sort falling 
like dregs to the bottom, whilst the more refined 
spirits do like the cream rise above ; these like 



4 .MORAL GALLANTRY. 

sparkles flying upward, whilst the others do like 
the contemned ashes lie neglected upon the level. 
And seeing the wise Former of the world did 
design by its fabric, the manifestation of his 
glory; it is most reasonable to conclude, that 
He would adorn such as are most conspicuous 
in it, with such charms and accomplishments, as 
might most vigorously ravish the beholders into 
the admiration of that glorious essence they re- 
present. The Almighty being hereby so kind 
to such whom He hath deprived of the pleasure 
of commanding others, as to give them the plea- 
sure of being commanded by such as they need 
not be ashamed to obey; and so just to those 
whom He had burdened with that command, as 
to fit them for it by resembling endowments : 
and as by the heroicness of these who represent 
him, He magnifies his own wisdom in that 
choice ; so by their public-spiritedness, he ma- 
nifests his love to these who are to be governed. 
Thus, as amongst the spheres, the higher still 
roll with the greatest purity ; and as in natural 
bodies, the head is as well the highest as the 
noblest part of that pretty fabric, (from being 
vain whereof nothing could let us, but that as 
the apostle says, It is given us, and it is not our 
own workmanship;) so amongst men (each there- 
of is a little world, or rather a noble draught of 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 5 

the greater) the highest are ordinarily the more 
sublime; for such as attain by election to that 
height, must be presumed best to deserve it; 
such as force a passage to it, could not do so 
without abilities far raised above the ordinary 
allowance : and such as by their birth are ac- 
counted noble, have ordinarily (like water) their 
blood so much the more purified, by how much 
the farther it has run from its first fountain. An- 
tiquity is an abridged eternity; and that being 
one of God's attributes, these do oft resemble 
him most in his other attributes, who can pre- 
tend with greatest justice to this : and as in na- 
tural bodies, duration doth argue fineness and 
strength of constitution, so we cannot but ac- 
knowledge, that those families have been most 
worthy, who have worn out the longest track of 
time, without committing any such enormous 
crime, or being guilty of either such rashness or 
infrugality, as moth away these their lineages; 
which, like Jonah's gourd, rather appear to sa- 
lute the world, than to fix any abode in it. 

Yet there is a nobility of extraction much 
raised above what can owe its rise to flesh or 
blood ; and that is virtue, which being the same 
in souls, that the other is in bodies and families, 
must, by that analogy surpass it as far as the 
soul is to be preferred to the body ; and this 



«■ MORAL GALLANTRY. 

mortal honour and nobility, prizes its value so 
far above all other qualities, that the stoical 
Satirist, following the dictates or doctrines of 
that school, is bold to say, That nothing but 
virtue deserves the name of nobility. 

Nobilitas sola est atqus ; unica virtus. 

And in opposition to this nobility, but most con- 
sequentially to that doctrine, Seneca, a partisan 
of the same tribe, doth with a noble haughtiness 
of spirit tell us, That licet Deus nesciret t nee homo 
puniret, peccatum, non tamen peccarem, ob peccati 
vilitatem ; though God did not know, nor man 
would not punish vice, yet I would not sin; so 
mean a thing is \ice. For proving of which, I 
shall advance and confirm these two great truths, 
that men are, in point of honour, obliged to be 
virtuous : and that there is no vice which is not 
so mean, that it is unworthy of a gentleman : and 
shall lead you unto that seraglio of private vices, 
of which, though the weakest seem in our expe- 
rience to have strength enough to conquer such 
who pass for great spirits, or wits in the world ; 
a philosopher will yet find, that these defeats 
given by them to noble spirits, do not proceed 
from the irresistibleness of their charms, but 
from the inadvertence of such as are captivate ; 
and is rather a surprise than a conquest: for 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 1 

those great souls being busied in the pursuit of 
some other project, want nothing but time to 
overcome these follies, or else these vices and 
passions (which is a great argument of their 
weakness) do then assault such heroes, when 
they are become now mad with their prosperity. 
But if we will strip vice or passion of these 
gaudy ornaments, which error and opinion lend 
them, or advert to our own actions, we will find 
that these overcome us not, but that we by our 
own misapprehension of them overcome our- 
selves ; as will appear, first, by some general re- 
flections ; to which, iu the second place, I shall 
subjoin some particular instances, and shall by 
a special induction of the most eminent virtues 
and vices, clear, That there is nothing so noble 
as virtue, nor nothing so mean as vice. 

As to the general reflections, I shall begin 
with this ; That if advancement be a noble prize, 
doubtless virtue must by this be more noble 
than vice, seeing it bestows oftest that so much 
desired reward. For further proving of which 
from reason, consider, that no man will associate 
with vicious persons, (without which no project 
for advancement can be promoted). For who 
will hazard his life and fortune with one whom 
he cannot believe ? And who can believe one 
who is not virtuous ? Trust, fidelity, and sin- 



8 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

cerity, being themselves virtues : or, who should 
expect to gain by favours the friendship of such, 
as by their vices are ingrate to God and nature ? 
Who have been to such liberal, infinitely far 
above human reach ; (and thus likewise vicious 
persons are contemptibly mean, seeing they are 
so infinitely ingrate.) And in this appears the 
meanness of vice, that it can effectuate nothing 
without counterfeiting virtue, or without its real 
assistance : when robbers associate, they enter- 
tain something analogical to friendship and trust, 
else their vices would be but barren ; and with- 
out humility showed to inferiors, the proudest 
men and tyrants would owe but little to the 
greatness of their spirit. When undertakers 
league together, either they trust one another 
because of their oaths, or because of their inter- 
ests only ; if the first, they owe their success to 
virtue ; if the second, then they never fully ce- 
ment, but assist each other by halves; reserv- 
ing the other half of their force to attend that 
change, which interest may bring to their asso- 
ciates : and do such as fight for hire (interest 
being nothing else) acquit themselves with such 
valour, as those whose courage receives edge 
from duty, charity, religion, or any such virtu- 
ous principles ? Vicious persons have [many 
rivals, and so meet in their rising with much 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 9 

opposition : the covetous fear the promotion of 
him who is such ; and the ambitious of him who 
is of the same temper : but because all expect 
civility from the courteous, and money from the 
liberal ; they therefore wish their preferment, as 
what will contribute to their own interest : and 
princes are induced to gratify such, as knowing 
that in so doing they transmit to their people 
what they bestow upon such favourites ; and 
that they preclude the challenges of those, who 
repine at their favours as misplaced, when not 
bestowed upon themselves. 

If there be any thing that is noble and desir- 
able in fame, virtue is the only (at least as the 
straightest, so the nearest) road to it ; posterity 
taking our actions under their review without 
the bias of prejudice, passion, interest, or flattery. 
And of such as story canonizes for its grandees, 
Alexander is not so truly glorious for defeating 
the Indians, as for refusing to force Darius's 
fair daughters ; for in the one a great part is due 
to the courage of his soldiers, and the brutish- 
ness of his opposers ; whereas in the other he 
overcame the charms of such, as might have 
overcome all others ; and was put to combat his 
own youth, which had gained for him all his 
victories : the meanest of his soldiers could have 
forced a prisoner, but fame reserved it as a re- 



10 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

ward worthy of Alexander in his chastity, to 
vanquish a monarch, and gratify a generous 
lady ; to displease whom was as great a crime as 
it was to ravish others. Nor was William the 
Conqueror more honoured for subjecting a war- 
like nation, than for pardoning Gospatrick and 
Eustache of Bulloign, after so many revoltings : 
for in the one, he conquered but these who were 
less than himself; but in the other he conquered 
himself who was their conqueror. Aristides 
was esteemed more noble in undergoing a pa- 
tient banishment, than these usurpers who con- 
demned him to it, whose names remain as obscure 
as their crimes are odious ; whilst his is the con- 
tinual ornament of pulpits and theatres. And 
all the Roman glories do not celebrate Nero's 
memory to the same pitch with that of Seneca's, 
who did (like the sun) then appear greatest when 
he was nearest to the setting. Alexander is 
only praised, when we remember not his killing 
Parmenio: and the famous Hugh Capet of 
France ends his glory, where we begin to talk 
of his usurpation; and (to dispatch) this is one 
great difference betwixt virtue and vice, in re* 
lation to fame ; that vice, like a Charletan, is 
applauded by the unacquainted, or like rotten 
wood may shine in the dark ; but its lustre les- 
sens at the approach of either time or light ; 



MORAL GALLANTKY. 11 

wbereas though virtue may for a time lie under 
the oppression of malice, (which martyrdom it 
suffers only when it is mistaken for vice) ; yet 
time ennobles it, and light does not lend it splen- 
dour, but serves only to illuminate its beholders ; 
and so to enable them to discover what native 
excellencies it possesses. 

If Amphialus or Orondates had been charged 
in these romances ye so dote upon, with drunk- 
enness, oppression, or envy, certainly it had 
lessened their esteem even with such as most 
admire, though they will not imitate, these vir- 
tues. And to show how much kindness virtue 
breeds for such as possess it, consider how, 
though ye know these to be but imaginary ideas 
of virtue, yet we cannot but love them for that, 
as ye can love them for nothing else, seeing they 
never obliged you or your relations ; and since 
abstract virtue conciliates so much favour, cer- 
tainly virtue in you will conciliate much more : 
for besides that idea which will be common to 
you with them, some will be obliged thereby to 
love you as their benefactors ; and others because 
they know not when ye will become so ; and at 
least they will honour your virtue as that which 
will secure them against your wrongs ; and 
which will assure them of your good wishes, if 
you cannot lend them your assistance. Would 



12 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

not the most prostitute ladies hate Statira or 
Parthenissa, if they had been represented under 
any one of these their own vices ; whose number 
ean find their account no where but in the mo- 
ments they live, nor excuses no where but in the 
madness of such as commit them ? And would 
not our gallants think it ridiculous to see these 
heroes brought in by the author of Cassandra 
or Parthenissa, glorying in, having made their 
comrades brutish by drinking, or poor maids mi- 
serable by uncleanness ? and though whoring be 
cried up as one of these genteel exercises, that are 
the price of so much time and pains ; yet we hear 
of none of these who are so much as said to have 
had a whore, far less to glory in it. But to 
turn the medal ; consult your own experience, 
and it will remember you of many hopeful gen- 
tlemen, whose advancement has been so far dis- 
appointed by these vices, that they fell so low as 
to become objects of pity to such as feared them 
once, as their accomplished rivals. And to let 
us see the folly of sin ; I have known such as 
hated niggardliness so much, as that to shun it, 
they spent their abortive estates before they were 
full masters of them ; brought by that excess to 
flee creditors, starve at home, walk in rags, and 
which is worse, beg in misery ; and so to fall 
into the extremity of that vice, whose first and 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 13 

most innocent degrees they laughed at in others ; 
and when they begged from these who were both 
authors and companions in their debaucheries, 
(expecting to be supplied as well by their justice, 
as their compassion) did get no return but that 
laughter which was a lesson taught by them- 
selves : or at best, a thousand curses for having 
bred them in a way of living, that did naturally 
occasion so much mischief. If then poverty be 
mean and ignoble, certainly vice must be so too ; 
seeing besides sickness, infirmity and infamy, it 
hales on poverty upon such as entertain it. 

When the world was yet so young as to be 
led by sincerity, in place of that experience which 
makes our age rather witty than honest; its 
heroes, who equally surpassed and ennobled man- 
kind by their virtue, were for it deified, even by 
these their contemporaries, who in possessing 
much more both riches and power than they, 
wanted nothing but this virtue to be much greater 
than they were. And thus Nimrod's kingdom 
could not build him altars, though sincere Rha- 
damanthus had fire kindled on his by the heat 
of their zeal, who knowing him to be mortal, 
could not, even in spite of his dying, but wor- 
ship that immortal virtue which shined in him. 
And as Cicero informs, these gods of the Pa- 
gans were at first but illustrious heroes whose 



14 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

virtue, rather than their nature, rendered them 
immortal, and worthy to be worshipped* even in 
the estimation of such undisciplined brutes, as 
thought the laws of nature a bondage, and the 
laws of God a fable. We find, though Lycur- 
gus in Lacedemon, Aristides in Athens, and 
Epaminondas in Thebes, were not born to com- 
mand, yet their virtue bestowed on them what 
their birth denied ; and both without, and against 
factions, they were elected by their citizens to 
that rule, which they did not court ; and were 
preferred to such as both by birth and pains had 
fairer pretences to it. And whilst Greece 
flourished, reges philosophabant, et philosophi re- 
gebant ; these commonwealths being more nu- 
merous than their neighbours in nothing but the 
sincere exercise of reason. And when tyranny 
and pride had, by wasting these commonwealths, 
made place for the Roman glory ; nothing con- 
quered so much the confiners of that glorious 
state, (whose centre was virtue, and circumfer- 
ence fame) as their virtue. Thus the Phalerions 
are by Plutarch said to have sent ambassadors 
to Rome, resigning themselves over to the Roman 
government, because they found them so just and 
noble, as to send back their children who had 
been betrayed by a schoolmaster. When Pyr- 
rhus was advertised by the Romans to beware 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 15 

of poison from one of his own subjects, who had 
offered to despatch him ; he did then begin to 
fear that he should be conquered by their arms, 
who had already subdued him by their civilities. 
And such esteem had their justice gained them, 
that they were chosen umpires of all neighbour- 
ing nations ; and so gained one of the opposites 
first to a confederacy, and then to a dependency 
upon them. And Attalus king of Pergamus, 
did in legacy leave them his kingdom, as to 
those whose virtues deserved it as a reward; 
which occasioned St. Augustine to fall out into 
this eloquent expression : — Because GW(saithhe) 
would not bestow heaven upon the Romans, they 
being Pagans ; he bestowed the empire of the world 
upon them, because they were virtuous. And many 
have been raised to empires by no other assis- 
tance than that of their virtue ; as Numa Pom- 
pilius, Marcus Antonius, Pertinax, and Ves- 
pasian ; whilst the want of this hath in spite of 
all the power with which vicious governors have 
been surrounded, degraded others from the 
same imperial honours ; as Tarquinius Superbus, 
Domitian, Commodus. And generally there is 
but one emperor to be seen in that long Roman 
list, who was unfortunate being virtuous : and 
not one whose vice was not the immediate cause 
of ruin to its author. 



16 MORAL GAIXANTRY. 

Antiquity hath also transmitted to us the me- 
mory of Socrates, Zeno, and other philosophers, 
under as obliging eulogies, as these of the most 
famous emperors ; whom virtue (to let us see that 
riches and honour are but the instruments of fame 
and not the dispensers of it) hath without any as- 
sistance raised to this pitch above these princes, 
that they have conquered our esteem without the 
aid of armies, treasures, senates, or flattering his- 
torians, and cease not like them to command 
when they ceased to live, but by their precepts 
and discourses force worthy souls yet to a more 
entire obedience, than the others did whilst they 
were alive by their sanctions and penal statutes. 
For princes govern but a short time one nation; 
and by these laws they awe but such vicious 
persons, whom it is more trouble than honour to 
command. But these illustrious philosophers, 
and such as imitate their virtue, have thereby 
attained to a sovereignty, over both the wills and 
judgments of the best of all such as are scattered 
amongst all the other kingdoms of the world. 
And Marcus Aurelius, who was one of the great- 
est emperors, doth recommend to kings as well 
as subjects, to think that one of these philosophers 
is beholding all their actions, as a most efficacious 
mean to keep men in awe, not to commit that 
vice to which they are tempted. 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 17 

I have seen very great men shun to own even 
their beloved vices, in the presence of such as 
they needed not fear for any thing but their vir- 
tue. And it is most remarkable, that Nero, who 
exceeded all who then lived in power, and all 
who shall live (I hope) in cruelty, did still judge 
himself under some restraint whilst Seneca was 
at court to be a witness to his actions. And 
every vicious person must flee public and the 
light, (which shows the meanness and cowardli- 
ness of vice,) when he is to resign himself over 
to any of these criminal exercises; by which 
likewise when committed, men become yet more 
cowards; for who having spent his life at that 
unworthy rate, will not (if he be master of any 
reason) tremble and be afraid to venture up- 
on such exploits, which by taking his life from 
him, may and will present him before the tribunal 
of that God whom he hath offended ? And from 
whom (which will not a little contribute to his 
cowardliness) he cannot expect that success, 
whereof the expectation lessens or heightens to 
its own measures the courage of such as are en- 
gaged. 

We may easily conclude the meanness of vice 

from this also, that servants without pains or art 

equal us in them ; for these can whore, drink, 

lie, and oppress : but to be temperate, just, and 

c 



18 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

compassionate, are qualities whereby we deserve, 
and are by such as know us not, judged to be 
masters and well descended. And have not 
servants reason to think themselves as deserving 
persons as their masters, when they find them- 
selves able to equal or surpass them in what they 
glory in, as their great accomplishments ? 

Seeing what is imitated is still nobler than 
what imitates, certainly vice must be the less no- 
ble, because it but copies virtue, and owes to its 
mask and our errors, what it possesses of plea- 
sure or advantage. Cruelty pretends to be zeal, 
liberality is counterfeited by the prodigal, and 
lust endeavours to pass for love. 

Is there any thing more ignoble than fear, 
which does as slaves subject us to every attempt- 
er ? And have not all vices somewhat of that 
unmanly passion ? In covetousness we fear the 
want of money, in ambition the want of honour, 
in revenge the want of justice, in jealousy rivals; 
and when we lie we fear to speak openly. 

Is there any thing more mean than depend- 
ence ? And does not ambition make us to de- 
pend upon such as have honours ? Covetousness 
upon such as have riches ? And lust upon the 
refuse of women ? Whereas, virtue seeks no 
other reward than is paid in doing what is virtu- 
ous, and owes its fee only to itself; leaving vice 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 19 

in the servile condition of serving for a fee, even 
those whom it most hates. And generally in all 
vices we betray a meanness, because in all these 
we confess want and infirmities : in avarice we 
appear either fools in desiring what is not neces- 
sary, in disobliging friends, hazarding our health, 
and other necessaries, for what is not so in itself; 
or else we confess that our necessities are both 
greater and more numerous than these of others, 
by heaping together riches and money, which 
serve for nothing when they serve us not in sup- 
plying our wants. In ambition we confess the 
want of native honour and excellency : in lust, 
want of continency: in anger, we want command 
of ourselves; and in jealousy, we declare we 
think not ourselves worthy of that love alone, 
wherein we cannot fear rivals upon any other ac- 
count. And in jealousy, men likewise wrong 
their own honour in suspecting their ladies or 
friends; whereas virtue persuades us, that our 
necessities may be confined to a very small num- 
ber; and that these may be repaired without any 
loss of friends, and but little of time. It teaches 
us that riches were created to serve us ; and that 
therefore we disparage ourselves, when we sub- 
ject our humour to our servants. And from it 
we learn to rate so justly the excellencies of that 
rational soul which is the image of God Almigh- 



20 MOllAL GALLANTRY 

ty, as to expect from it, and no where else under 
the sun, any true and solid happiness ; and to 
account nothing more noble than it, except the 
Almighty God whose offspring it is, and whom 
it represents. 

There is nothing more mean than to be cheat- 
ed, and all vices cheat us ; treason promises 
honour, but leads to a scaffold; lust pleasure, 
but leads to sickness ; and flattery cheats all such 
as hear it; and such as are proud are double mi- 
serable, because they are both the cheaters and 
the persons cheated. Thus vice cannot please 
without a crime; and these are even then gaining 
the hatred and contempt of others, when they 
are enquiring or hearing from flatterers, that the 
people seek no where without them objects of 
love and admiration: whereas sacred virtue allows 
us to admire ourselves, and which is more, to 
believe that all these things for which vicious 
men neglect the care of their souls, are unworthy 
of our research ; and certainly the soul is a more 
noble creature than that earth, or metal, which 
we stain our souls to get : for our souls do cen- 
sure all these things, it finds defects in the no- 
blest buildings, and shows by desiring more, an 
unsatiableness in all extrinsic objects; it deter- 
mines the price of all other creatures, and like 
the magistrate in this commonwealth, assigns to 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 21 

every thing its rate ; to day it cries up the dia- 
mond, and to morrow it allows preference to the 
ruby : these traits and colours which ravish this 
year, pass the next for no beauty. Red hair 
pleases the Italian, and our climate hates it; and 
it is probable that this change of inclination is 
not a culpable inconstancy in man, but a mark 
of his sovereignty over all his fellow-creatures. 
Virtue teaches him not to owe his happiness to 
the stars, nor to be like them foolish emperors, 
so fondly vain, as to think that he shall have no 
other reward for his virtue, than the being trans- 
formed into one of these lesser lights, which he 
knows to have been created only for a lanthorn 
to him ; or at the best but to adorn with their 
numberless associates that firmament, which was 
created to be one of these arguments, whereby 
he was to be courted into a belief of, and love 
for, that God who thinks him so excellent a 
creature, that he is said to be glad at the con- 
version of a sinner, and to grieve at his obstinacy. 
And if we will consider the miraculous fabric of 
our bodies, which though we be but dull, yet we 
may see to be all workmanship; and wherein the 
number of wonders equals that of nerves, sinews, 
veins, bones, or ligaments ; the curious fabric of 
that brain, which lodges (without crowd or con- 
fusion) so many thousand of different and noble 



22 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

thoughts; the artifice of those various organs, 
that express so harmonious airs and ravishing 
expressions; the charmingness of these lines and 
features in ladies, which like the sun scorch as 
well as illuminate the beholders : we may con- 
clude that our soul must be a most excellent 
piece, seeing all this contexture is appointed to 
be but a momentary tabernacle for it, when it is 
in its lowest and un worthiest estate ; and which 
when the soul deserts, is thrown out with all its 
wonders, lest it should by its stink trouble the 
meanest of these senses, which serves the souls 
of these who are alive. Consider, how this soul 
grasps in one thought all that globe for which 
ambitious men fight, and for some of whose fur- 
rows the avaricious man doth so much toil. 
Consider, how it despises all that avarice has 
amassed ; how it is pleased with no external ob- 
ject longer than it fully considers it ; and what a 
great vacuity is left in our desires, after these 
are thrown into them ; and by all this we may 
learn that vice disparages too much the soul, 
when it imagines that any finite thing can bound 
its thoughts ; and we are but cheated when we 
listen to these proffers which vice makes use of, 
honour, pleasure, or advantage : for who can be 
so mean to think that all these faculties were 
bestowed upon our souls, these features upon our 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 23 

bodies, and so much care taken of both by pro- 
vidence, for no other end than that we should 
admire that wine which peasants make ? Those 
colours which prostitute whores wear? That 
we should gain fortunes, which serve too oft to 
corrupt these for whom they are prepared ? Or 
respect from such as bow not to us, but to our 
stations ? 

Having thus over-run these general consider- 
ations, whereby men who are gallant may be 
courted to a love for virtue, my method leads 
me now to fall down to those instances of parti- 
cular vices and virtues, wherein I may make 
nearer approaches to the actions of mankind : 
and seeing there is too much of ease, too little 
of cogency, in writing full and tedious essays 
upon these common themes, I shall consider 
them only as they relate to gallantry ; promising 
no other tract of art in all this discourse, but 
that I shall pursue my design so closely, as not 
to employ any argument against vice, nor assist 
virtue with one thought, but such as may descry 
the one as mean, and cry up the other as gen- 
teel and handsome. 

We owe that deference to great men, that 
even their vices should have the precedency of 
all others ; and therefore I shall begin this in- 
vective with dissimulation, which is peculiarly 



24 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

their sin ; for when the meaner sort are guilty 
of the same thing, it is in them called falsehood ; 
from which dissimulation differs nothing, but 
that it is the cadet of a nobler family. And this 
evinces what an ugly and ungenteel vice dissim- 
ulation is, seeing he is no gentleman who would 
choose rather to die or starve, than to be thought 
false : all dissemblers show an inability to com- 
pass without these pitiful shifts, what in dissem- 
bling they design, for this is the last refuge ; and 
by this courage becomes unnecessary : and we 
oft see that cowards dissemble best, gallant men 
laying that weight upon their courage, which 
others do upon dissimulation. And at this un- 
worthy game it is not requisite to be gallant, 
provided men be wicked. Dissimulation is but 
a courtly cowardliness, and a stately cheat : and 
certainly he is too much afraid of his own either 
courage or fate, and values too much his prize 
above his honour, or innocence, who can stoop 
to play his underboard game : whereas a gallant 
and generous soul will not fear any event so much, 
as to leave his road for it ; and will own what is 
just with so much nobleness of resolution, that 
though fate should tumble down upon him 
mountains of misfortune, they may perhaps over- 
whelm, but they shall never be able to divert him. 
Where are then these gallant resolutions of our 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 25 

forefathers ; who scorned even victories gained by 
treachery, falsehood, poisons, and such other 
unhandsome means? Where is the Roman 
fortitude, which advertised Pyrrhus of his phy- 
sicians' offer to poison him, though their greatest 
enemy? And which caused Marcus Regulus 
choose to return to be a martyr for virtue rather 
than stain the Roman faith? Where are these 
resentments of the lie in frivolous causes, when 
great men magnify in their dissimulation what 
is in effect lying and treachery ? To deceive 
one who is not obliged to believe us, is ill ; but 
to cheat one whom our own fair pretences have 
induced to believe us, is much worse ; for this 
is to murder one whom we have persuaded to 
lay aside his arms : and as dissimulation thrives 
never but once, so to use it cuts off from the dis- 
sembler that trust and confidence which is ne- 
cessary in great undertakings ; for who will de- 
pend on these whom they cannot trust? And 
after Dissemblers are catched, as seldom they 
escape, the abused people hate and persecute 
them as violators of that without which the world 
cannot subsist. I appeal to the reader, if he hath 
not heard enemies loved for their ingenuity ; and 
if he hath not seen these cut-throat lights blown 
out, and end in a stinking snuff; and as if every 
man had escaped a cut-purse, if every man did 

D 



26 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

not bless himself, and rejoice to see these dis- 
semblers fall. And I may justly say, that dis- 
simulation is but the theory of cut-pursing, or 
murder : consider how unpleasant any thing ap- 
pears that is crooked, and ye will find natural ar- 
gument against dissimulation; and though it hath 
great patrons, and can pretend to an old posses- 
sion, and much breeding at some courts, (though 
all who are gallant there hate it,) yet it is never 
able to gain esteem ; and can defend itself no 
other ways than by a cowardly lurking, and 
shunning to be discovered. Neither can there 
be so much wit in this art, as can justify its er- 
ror ; for women, and the meanest wits are oftimes 
most expert in it : all can do it in some measure, 
and none ever used it long without being dis- 
covered ; and such only are rendered its prey, 
as make it no great conquest ; they being either 
our friends, who expected not our invasion, or 
fools who are worthy to be glorified in as our 
trophies. 

There are none of the vices which rage amongst 
them, more destructive to either their honour, 
or to the honour of that commonwealth which 
they compose, than envy, and (which follows it, 
and aggravates its guilt) detraction. Envy is 
mean, because it confesses that the envier is not 
so noble or excellent as tjie person envied ; for 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 27 

none are envied, but such as possess somewhat 
that overreaches, or excels what is possessed by 
such as do envy. This vice acknowledges, that 
he who useth it, wants much of what is desirable ; 
and which is meaner, much of what another 
possesses ; and as if we despaired of rising to 
another's height, it makes us endeavour to pull 
him down to the stature of our own accomplish- 
ments. Most men essay to imitate the actions 
of these whom they envy ; so that in detracting 
from these, they leave others to undervalue what 
they themselves design ardently to perform. 
And thus, if these detractors be so much favoured 
by fate, as to achieve any such great action ; as 
that is which they undervalue in others, they get 
but a barren victory ; and which is more insup- 
portable, they see themselves punished by their 
own vice. And to convince us how mean vices, 
envy and detraction are ; we may observe, that, 
such as are victorious, judge it their honour, to 
magnify these who were vanquished ; and men 
wound extremely their own honour, when they 
detract from persons who are more deserving in 
the eyes of the world than themselves ; for they 
force their hearers to conclude, That the detrac- 
tors themselves must be undeserving; seeing 
these who deserve better, are by their confession, 
cried down as being of no merit ; which remem- 



£8 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

bers me of this excellent passage in Plinius the 
Second, Tibi ipsi ministras in alio laudando ; 
aut enini is quern laudas, tibi superior est, aut in- 
ferior ; si inferior, et laudandas tu multo magis ; 
si superior, nequejure laudandus, tu multo minus: 
Thou servest thine own interest when thou 
praisest others ; for either he whom thou prais- 
est, is thy inferior, and then if he deserves to be 
praised, much more thou ; if he be thy superior* 
and deserves not to be praised, much less thou. 
All men are either our friends, or our enemies* 
or such who have not concerned themselves in 
our affairs. We are base because ingrate, when 
we detract from our friends ; and we assert our 
own folly, when by detraction we endeavour to 
lessen the worth of those whom we have chosen 
for such : we lessen likewise our honour, when 
we detract from our competitors and enemies, 
because to contest with undeserving persons is 
ignoble ; and to be vanquished by them has lit- 
tle of honour in it: whereas as all events are 
uncertain, if we be overcome by such as our de- 
tractions have made to pass for undeserving, our 
overthrow will by so much become the more 
despicable ; and to detract from such as expected 
no wrong from us, and who are strangers to us 
and our affairs, is not only imprudent and un- 
just* but is as dishonourable and little gallant, 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 29 

as that is to wound one who expects not our as- 
sault, and whose innocency as to us, leaves him 
disarmed ; and the word backbiting clears to us, 
that detraction is a degree of cowardliness ; for 
it assaults only such as are unprepared or absent, 
which is held dishonourable among the least of 
such as have gallantry in any esteem. He who 
praises, bestows a favour, but he who detracts, 
commits a robbery, in taking from another what 
is justly his ; and certainly to give, is more noble 
than to take. Envy is almost prejudicial to 
great undertakings, seeing such as are engaged, 
must resolve either not to act what is necessary 
for completing so great projects, or if they do, 
to fall under the envy of these for whom they 
act them ; and the undertakers do obstruct by 
envy their own greatness, because they are by 
that vice persuaded to crop such as begin to 
perform in their service, attempts worthy of the 
being considered. How destructive likewise 
this vice is to the glory of kingdoms and com- 
monwealths, does but too clearly appear from 
this* that all who are in them are either despi- 
cable by not being worthy of the being envied, 
or else will be destroyed by that vice, which 
levels its murdering engines at such only who 
are the noblest spirits, and who deserve most 
promotion from their country. Carthage was 



30 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

destroyed by the envy which Hanno and Bomil- 
car bore to Hannibal, who by denying him forces 
to prosecute his Italian conquests, did involve 
themselves with him in the common ruins of 
their country; which shows the dishonourable 
folly of envy in conspiring against itself, with 
these, who being enemies to both the opposites, 
sides first with the one in gratifying his envy, 
and then destroys the other, whose passsion it 
first served. Pitiful examples whereof our own 
age affords us, wherein many great men were 
by envy driven to oppose principles, whereon 
they knew the public safety and their own private 
interest to depend. Flaminius, the Roman 
general, endangered Rome ; and Terentius Var- 
ro did almost lose it out of envy to Fabius Maxi- 
mus ; and such was the force of envy, that it did 
defeat the great Scipio, and banished him from 
that Rome which he had made both secure and 
great; and did by his example cool the zeal of 
such who retained their blood in its veins, as in 
an arsenal, for no other end than the service of 
their country ; as a consequence of which envy, 
it was observed, That in the next age most of 
Rome's citizens declined rather to entertain that 
fame, which the former courted, than to be ex- 
posed to the cruelty of that envy which did 
usually attend it. Detraction brings likewise 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 31 

these great disadvantages to our reputation, that 
it engages both these from whom we detract, and 
their friends, partly out of revenge, and partly 
for self-defence, to inquire into our errors and 
frailties; and to publish such as upon inquiry 
they have found, or to hatch calumnies, if truth 
cannot supply them : and in that case, rate of 
game obliges us to favour the counterer ; for we 
defend what may be our own case, in favouring 
what is at present but the defence of others. It 
legitimates likewise these calumnies which are 
vented by us, by such as our detraction hath not 
yet reached, who will think it their prudence 
(like those who fear invasion) to carry the war 
into the territories of such, from whom they do 
upon well founded suspicions expect acts of hos- 
tility. If then our own honour be dear to us, 
we should not invade the honour of others : for 
revenge, the activest of passions (when added to 
that love of honour, which is equal in us and 
them) will oblige them to do more against our 
honour, than we can do in its defence. 

Whoring renders men contemptible, whilst 
it tempts them to embrace such as are not only 
below themselves in every sense, but such as are 
scarce worthy to serve these handsomer ladies, 
whom they either do, or may lawfully enjoy. 
Doth not this vice persuade men to lie in cottages 



32 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

with sluts, or (which is worse) strumpets ? To 
lurk in corners ; to fear the encounter of such as 
know them; and to bribe and fear those servants, 
who by serving them at such occasions, have by 
knowing their secrets, attained to such sc servile 
mastery over them, that I have been ashamed to 
hear gentlemen upbraided by these slaves, in 
terms which were the adequate punishment, as 
well as the effect of their vice. Men in whoring 
must design either to satisfy their own necessities, 
or their fancy ; if their necessities, then as mar- 
riage is more convenient, so it is as much more 
noble than whoring ; as it is more genteel for a 
person of honour, rather to lodge constantly in 
a well appointed palace, than to ramble up and 
down in blind ale-houses ; in the one a man en- 
joys his own, whereas in the other he only lives 
as thieves do by purchase; if to satisfy fancy, 
certainly it should please more, at least it is more 
honourable to be secure against rivals, than to 
be sure to be equalled by them. Who will fancy 
a divided affection ? And who can be sure that 
she who destroys her honour for us, will not re- 
sign the same to a second, or a third ; for besides 
the experiment we have of her change, oaths, 
honour, and obligations can be no convincing 
evidences of, or sureties for, what she promises; 
seeing she is then breaking these, when she gives 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 33 

strangers these new assurances. And this makes 
me laugh to hear women so foolish as to rely 
upon such promises as are given by men who 
destroy their nuptial oaths when they make them. 
And if women be such excellent persons as to 
deserve that respect, and these adorations, which 
are passionate enough to be paid before altars ; 
certainly every man should endeavour to secure 
the esteem of one of these rare creatures, which 
is more noble than to rest satisfied with a tenth, 
or sixteenth part, like men sharing in a caper. 
And therefore seeing fancy nor honour allow no 
rivals, I am confident that no man can satisfy 
his fancy, nor secure his honour, in preferring 
a whore to a wife, or in using whores when he 
wants one. Have not whores ruined the repute 
of some great men who entertained them, by 
causing them to neglect to pursue their victories, 
as Thais did to Alexander, and Cleopatra to 
Mark Antony ? Have they not betrayed their 
secrets wherein their fame was most interested, 
as Dalilah did to Samson ? And there is no- 
thing more ordinary to hear such (like Herod) 
sware that they dare not refuse their mistresses 
whatever is within their reach; and thus they 
must either prove base in perjuring themselves, 
if they think not what they say ; or are con- 
temptible slaves both to their passions and to 



34 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

these who occasion them, if they resolve to per- 
form what they promise ; which makes likewise 
these to be dangerous masters, who depend 
upon the humour of a woman ; and so concludes 
them unfit to be great. It were then a generous 
expiation of this vice in such as are oppressed 
by it, to use it (not its objects) as Mahomet the 
great did his gallant mistress Irene, whose life 
and head he sacrificed to the repinings of his 
court and Janizars ; who challenged him justly 
for loving rather to be conquered by one silly 
woman, than to conquer the world wherein she 
had many, but he no equals. It is noble to de- 
liver ladies out of danger, but not to draw dan- 
gers on them; and to punish such as scoff" at 
them, rather than to make them ridiculous : and 
what thousands of dangers are drawn upon ladies 
by being debauched, when married ; and if they 
be not married, are they not thereby made the 
proverb of all such as know them ? And to these 
I recommend Tamar's words, who when Am- 
nion offered to lie with her, told him, Thou shalt 
be as one of the fools in Israel ; and /, whither shall 
J cause my shame to go ? And after this, let them 
remember that when he had satisfied his lust, 
then he instantly (as is too ordinary) de- 
spised her person. And since ladies will not 
stain their honour with this vice till thev be 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 35 

married, I conceive they should much less after, 
for there the obligation is doubled. From all 
which it follows, that lust is equally base and ig- 
noble, whether it discharge itself upon equals or 
inferiors; betwixt which two there is only this 
difference, that it is brutal in the one case, and 
cruel in the other. 

There is no vice whereby gallantry is more 
stained, than by breach of promise ; which be- 
comes yet more sacrilegious when ladies are 
wronged by it. And of this, whoring makes 
men likewise guilty, when it robs from ladies 
their husbands ; robbing likewise such upon 
which it bestows them, both of their honour and 
quiet. And thus, though it makes such as use it 
barren, (God in this resisting the propagation of 
sin) yet itself brings forth its faults in full clusters. 
And Nathan's parable to David proves it like- 
wise to be so high an oppression, that no man of 
honour would commit it, if he would but seriously 
reflect upon his own actions. From which pa- 
rable this new observation may be likewise made, 
*that though David was guilty of murder and 
whoring, yet the prophet made choice only of 
this last to astonish this warlike monarch, and 
raise his indignation against this vice, when sha- 
dowed out under a foreign and borrowed repre- 
sentation; though murder be so barbarous a crime 



36 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

in itself, that the barbarians did instantly con- 
clude Paul guilty of it, when they saw the viper 
fasten upon his hand. The unjustest extrava- 
gance of lust is that, whereby men contemn such 
as become their wives, though they admired 
them when they were their mistresses ; for in 
this they confess it is a meanness to be theirs ; 
for since that time the neglecters thought them 
amiable, they, sweet creatures, have oft con- 
tracted no guilt, nor lessened the occasion of that 
esteem no otherwise, than by marrying their in- 
constant gallants, who seemed to have so warm 
a passion for them. And it is strange, that men 
should admire their own eloquence, courage, es- 
tates, and all things else they possess, for no 
other cause, than because they are their own; 
and yet should undervalue their wives (the no- 
blest thing they possess) upon this and no other 
account. 

I cannot think nature such a cheat, as that if 
women had not been the excellentest of creatures, 
it would have beautified them with charms, and 
armed their eyes with such piercing glances, thaiQ 
to resist them is the next impossibility to the find- 
ing a creature that is more accomplished than 
they ; and I confess, the love we bear them is 
not only allowable in itself, as an inclination that 
is of its own nature noble and virtuous, but like- 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 37 

wise, because it obliges such as are engaged in 
it to despise all mean vices, such as avarice or 
fear; and is incompatible with all disingenuous 
arts, such as dissimulation or flattery. And 
though such as are guilty of whoring, do justify 
their debording by a love to that glorious sex ; 
yet by this pretext they are yet more unjust and 
vicious than their former guilt made them ; for 
by roving amongst so many, they intimate that 
they are not satisfied with their first choice ; and 
that not only there are some of that sex, but 
that there is none in it who deserves their entire 
affection. Or else by dividing them amongst 
so many, they think their kindness sufficient to 
make numbers of ladies happy ; by both which 
errors, they wrong not only themselves by swear- 
ing otherwise to the ladies to whom they make 
love, but they wrong likewise the innocence and 
amiableness of that sweet sex, in whom no ra- 
tional man can find a blemish, besides their es- 
teem for such persons as these, who indeed ad- 
mire them no where but in their compliments ; 
Hand who are oft so base, that not only their so- 
ciety is scandalous, but they are ready to tempt 
such as they frequent ; or if they fail in this, are 
oft so wicked, that they, to satisfy either their 
revenge or vanity, do brag of intimacies and al- 
lowances which they never possessed. If then, 



38 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

gallants would be loved by their mistresses, they 
must be virtuous, seeing such love only these 
who are secret, many things passing amongst 
even Platonics, which should not be revealed. 
These who are courageous, seeing this is ap- 
pointed to be a protection to the weakness of 
their sex ; and these who are constant, seeing to 
be relinquished infers either a want of wit, in 
having chosen such as would quit them without 
a defect ; or else that they w T ere abandoned be- 
cause of defects, by such as the world may justly 
from their first ardency, conclude, would never 
have abandoned them without these ; what lady 
without a cheat, will be induced to love one wast- 
ed with pox and inconstancy ? one whom drun- 
kenness makes an unfit bedfellow, as well as a 
friend ? And though some worship the relics of 
saints, yet none but these who are mad as well 
as vicious, will worship the relics of sinners. 

Neither is the meanness of this vice taken off, 
by the greatness of these with whom it is shared, 
which may be clear from this, that either affec- 
tion, interest, or ambition, are in the design of* 
these offenders. If affection, it should excuse 
no more her who is whore to a monarch, than 
her who is such to a gentleman; for affection 
respects the person, but not the condition of such 
as are loved ; and it is certainly then most pure, 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 39 

when it cannot be ascribed to, or needs the help 
of either riches to bribe, or power to recommend 
it. But if riches be designed, then the commit- 
ter is guilty both of avarice and whoring ; and 
she is not worthy to be a mistress, who can stoop 
to a fee like a servant. And she who designs ho- 
nour and repute by these princely amours is far 
disappointed : for though she may command re- 
spect, yet esteem is not subject to sceptres. And 
I am confident that Lucretia, who choosed rather 
to open her veins to a fatal lance, than her heart 
to the embraces of a sovereign, is more admired 
than Thais, Popcea, Jane Shore, and Madame 
Gabriel; whose obedience to their own kings was 
a crime in them, though it was loyalty in others. 
Blushes are then the noblest kind of paint for 
ladies, and chastity is their most charming orna- 
ment : and if these would send out their emissa- 
ries, to learn by them how to reform their errors, 
as they oft do to reform their revenge, they would 
easily perceive, that loose men laugh at their 
kindness, virtuous men undervalue them and it. 
And whenever any judgment is poured out upon 
the kingdom, or misfortune overtakes these mi- 
nions, then all is ascribed by divines to their 
looseness; and it is one of the allowablest cheats 
in devotion, to invent miraculous resentments 
from heaven upon their failures. Young ladies, 



40 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

to recommend their own chastity, are obliged in 
good breeding, at least to say they hate them ; 
such as are married, are bound by their interest 
to decry such as may debauch their husbands; 
and these who are old, rail against them, as those 
who place all happiness in what, because of age, 
they cannot pretend to; whereas such as are 
chaste, are recommended with magnifying prais- 
es, for patterns to such as are vicious ; and are 
copied as admirable originals by such as are vir- 
tuous. And I cannot omit this one reflection, 
that chaste women are more frequently tainted 
with pride, than with any other vice ; nature as 
it were allowing to them to raise their own value 
far above others, whom they have (almost) reason 
to contemn as persons who prostitute themselves; 
(which, and the word humbling, are lessening 
epithets of whoring ;) and such who are nasty, 
spotted, and unclean. 

Lust and obscenity in discourse run in a vicious 
circle, and by an odious incest beget one another; 
for as lust prompts men to obscenity, so obscenity 
pimps men into lust; but in this, obscenity is 
more culpable than lust, that in the one, men al- 
lege a natural advantage, and some a necessity; 
but in the other they have no temptation, and so 
fall under that curse, Wo unto them that sin with- 
out a cause. In the one men sin covertly, making 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 41 

by their blushes, as by a tacit confession, some 
atonement for their guilt; but in the other men 
divulge their sin, and by gracing it with what, 
if the subject were honest, might pass for wit, 
do invite such as wish to be reputed wits, first 
to admire, and then to imitate them in their sin- 
ning; and the best of such as use that eloquence, 
become thereby most ignoble ; being in effect but 
cooks, who prepare sauces for provoking a lust- 
ful appetite in their hearts. And I admire, that 
seeing comedians are hissed off the stage when 
they attempt it, that such as are so far greater 
than these, as masters are above buffoons, should 
imagine that they can magnify themselves by it. 
This vice may well enough be ranged under one 
of the species of sodomy, seeing such as use it, 
employ in their lust these members, which were 
so far from being destinate for so low uses, that 
the Psalmist, in saying, He will praise God with 
his glory, (which interpreters render to be the 
tongue,) doth show us, that our tongues are 
amongst the noblest parts of our body. And 
when I consider how melodious it is in its har- 
monies ; how eloquent in its expressions ; how 
whole multitudes are reclaimed from their great- 
est furies by it; and how Cicero is, in spite of all 
his other faults, so admired for it, that thousands 
sweat and toil daily to make one in that number, 



42 MORAL GALLANTRY 

wherein he is acknowledged to be by them all 
far the first ; when I consider how miraculously 
it expresses, with the same motion, so varying 
sounds, that though mankind be innumerable, yet 
each in it hath his distinct tone and voice ; and 
how with little different positions, it signets the 
same air with words so extremely differing, that 
one may think that each man hath a spirit speak- 
ing out of him : I must tell out in regrets and 
wonders, that, and how so excellent a faculty is 
so much abused ! Neither must we conclude, 
that because such go away unanswered, that they 
owe this to the sharpness of their wit, but rather 
to the depravedness of its subject ; wherewith the 
greatest part of accurate spirits are so little ac- 
quainted, that some know not the terms, and 
others know them only to hate them. We must 
not think, that we admire for wits such still at 
whom we laugh: and I believe many laugh at 
such as are profane, as they do at such as they 
see slip and catch a fall, though never so dan- 
gerous. I regret in this vice, both to see sharp 
men so vicious, and so much wit so misemployed; 
for though we may say here that materiam supera- 
bat opus, yet such is the abjectness and worth* 
lessness of the matter, that it is not capable of 
ornament, no more than excrements are to be 
admired, though they were^ijded, and carved out 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 43 

by the most curious hand; and their wit is at 
least to be charged with this error, that it chooses 
not subjects worthy of their pains ; for whereas 
the quaintness of fancy doth, when employed 
about indifferent subjects, beget its masters re- 
spect ; and when upon excellent admiration, all 
that it can do here, is but to excuse the faults it 
makes; and so at least is so beggarly an employ- 
ment, that it is scarce able to defray its own 
charges. I account him no wit who cannot de- 
serve that name, though he be barred any one 
subject, especially such a subject as obscenity is; 
wherein former traffickers have beeen so nume- 
rous, and so vacant from other employments, 
that as nothing which is excellent, so little that 
is new can be said upon it ; and what is said, is 
transmitted from ear to ear, with so much of se- 
crecy, that as no historian will write it, so fewer 
will know it, than will know any of these witty 
productions of learning, or moral philosophy, 
which all men indifferently desire to read and 
repeat: whereas this will be altogether suppressed 
from succeeding ages; and of the present, ladies, 
statesmen, lawyers, divines, and physicians, are 
not allowed to give it audience. I have heard 
women, though loose, say, that they loved none 
of these who publish their shame, though they 
satisfied their lust ; apd that such did often eva- 



44 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

porate their lust in these railleries, or design to 
supply their defects in such discourses. And I 
know that lacquies or bawds, will be more accu- 
rate in that kind of eloquence, than the noblest 
of such as use it, (if any who are noble use it at 
all). Men must either think women great cheats, 
in loving what they weep and blush at; or else 
they are very cruel, in tormenting their ears with 
so grating sounds. And if women be such ex- 
cellent creatures, as mens' oaths and comply 
ments make them, certainly obscenity must be a 
mean vice, seeing of all others, such decry it 
most : for compliance with whom, it is strange 
that these who offer to die, will not much rather 
abandon a piece of imaginary wit, and which 
passeth not even for such, but among these who 
are scarce competent judges. It is most unbe- 
seeming a gentleman, for such as frequent ladies, 
to spend so much time in studying a kind of wit, 
that not only cannot be serviceable, but which 
cannot in any case be acceptable or recreative to 
these lovely persons; for whose divertisement 
and satisfaction, even those obscene ranters do 
pretend that they employ all their time and pains; 
and whom they will doubtless at some occasions 
offend, by slipping into one of these criminal ex- 
pressions, which custom will so familiarize, that 
it will be as impossible for them to abstain, as it 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 45 

will be for these others to hear what is so spoke 
without trouble and dissatisfaction. Such as 
have their noble souls busied about great mat- 
ters, find little time to invent expressions, or 
mould thoughts concerning such pitiful subjects. 
And I appeal to the worst of these, if they do 
not abominate such as are in history noted for 
obscenity ; and if they would not hate any, who 
would adorn their funeral harangue with no other 
praises but that they were so wittily profane, that 
they would force ladies to blush, debauchees to 
laugh, statesmen to undervalue them, and chase 
divines from their table. 

Avarice is so base a vice, that the term sordid 
is improperly used in morality, when it is other- 
wise applied ; and by terming one a noble person, 
we intend to signify, that he is liberal : this is 
that vice, which by starving great designs, hin- 
ders them to grow up to their full dimensions. 
None will carry about dismembered bodies, and 
wear scars in their service, nor gain victories for 
these, whose avarice will so little reward their 
pains, that they oftimes refuse to supply these 
necessities which were contracted in their own 
employments. No great man hath both the 
hearts and the purses of his inferiors. And few 
have been famous or prosperous, but such as 
have been as ready to bestow riches upon their 



46 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

friendsj as they have been ready to take spoil 
from their enemies. Themistocles finding him- 
self tempted to look upon a great treasure, 
blushed at his error ; and turning to his servant* 
said, Take thou that money, for thou art not The^ 
mistocles. Rome then begun to be jealous of 
Caesar's greatness, when he begun to put the 
army in his debt. It was said of that noble 
Duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer 
in France ; for he laid out his estate in obliga- 
tions. And Tacitus observes, that Vespasian 
had equalled the greatest of the Roman heroes* 
if his avarice had not lessened his other virtues : 
which is the observation made by Philip de 
Comines, upon Lewis the XI. of PVance. Per- 
seus, out of love to his treasures, lost both his 
kingdom and these ; being as a punishment to his 
avarice, led in triumph in the company of his 
coffers by a Roman general, who gloried, and is 
yet famous for having died almost a beggar. 
The world love esteem, and follow such as are 
liberal ; historians celebrate their names ; sol- 
diers fight their battles; and their beadsmen 
importune heaven for success to their arms ; but 
no man can have a kindness for such as will 
prefer to them a little stamped earth ; or value 
no obligations but these which bind to a paying 
of money. And it is well concluded by the 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 47 

world, that no vast soul can restrict all its 
thoughts to that employment, which is the task 
of porters and cobblers. In this vice we make 
our souls to serve our riches ; whereas in 
its opposite virtue, riches, and every thing- 
else, (whose price these may be,) are by such as 
are truly liberal, subjected to the meanest em*- 
ployment, to which the soul can think them con^ 
ducive. And the soul is too noble and well 
appointed an apartment, to be filled with coffers, 
bags, and such like trash, which even these, 
who value them most, hoard up in their darkest 
and worst furnished rooms : and such as are li- 
beral are the masters (for it belongs to these 
only to spend), whereas the avaricious are in 
effect but their cash-keepers; who have the power 
to keep, but not the allowance to spend what is 
under their custody. I am confident, that Zeno 
is more famous (and to be rich serves for nothing- 
else) for throwing away his money, when it be- 
gun to trouble his nobler thoughts, than Croesus 
whose mountainous treasures served only to 
bribe a more valiant prince to destroy them and 
him. And Marcus Crassus, the richest Roman, 
was so far undervalued by Julius Caesar, that he 
said, he would make himself richer in one hour, 
than these riches could their master; which 
came accordingly to pass, when by his liberality 



48 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

he gained the Roman soldiery ; and they gained 
for him the empire of that world, whereof Cras- 
sus's estate was but a small one, though his ava- 
rice made it a great spot in him. This vice 
implies a present sense of want, and a fear of 
future misery, to be hoarding up what serves 
for nothing else, except to prevent, or supply us 
in these conditions. But noble spirits, who de- 
sign fame and conquests, virtue and religion, 
raise their thoughts above this low vice; and 
design not to gain riches, but men, who are 
masters of these : and with whom when gained, 
they can soon bring all things to their devotion : 
and therefore in point of honour we are obliged 
to hate avarice, and cherish liberality. 

Though treason cheats with fair hopes of 
glory and advancement; and at least this vice 
pretends to have whole woods of laurels at its 
disposal; yet the most or dinary preference it gains 
men, is the being first amongst fools and vicious 
persons, for they are then wronging both that 
honour they possess, and that to which they as- 
pire ; when they by their usurpation learn others 
how sweet it is to rebel against their superiors : 
and such as employ the commons against their 
sovereign, must expect to allow them greater li- 
berty than suits with the honour of governors ; 
and must style themselves the servants of the 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 49 

people. How meanly must these flatter that 
unreasonable crew ? Swear friendship with such 
as have wronged their honour ? Lie, dissemble, 
cheat, beg ; meet in dark corners with their as- 
sociates ; and suffer so much toil and misery, as 
wants nothing but the nobleness of the quarrel 
to make them martyrs ? It is not safe for any 
man in point of honour, to undertake designs 
wherein it is probable he will fail, and wherein if he 
fail, it is most certain that his honour will suffer : 
and there is no crime wherein men are more 
like to fail, than in this ; the rabble whom they 
employ, being as uncertain, as they are a furious 
instrument : and like the elephant, ready still to 
turn head against such as employ them in battle : 
and who will trust the promise of these leaders, 
(for without large promises, rebellion can never 
be effectuate,) who in these promises are betray- 
ing their own allegiance ? And such as these 
employ, will (at least may) consider, that how 
soon they have effectuate these treacherous de- 
signs ; they will either disdain the instruments as 
useless, or destroy them as dangerous and as 
such, who by this late experience, are abler to 
ruin them, than they were their predecessors. 
And when such traitors are disappointed of their 
designs, they are laughed at as fools ; for nothing 
but success can clear them from that imputation ; 



50 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

and exposed to all the ludibry, and thereafter to 
the tortures of enemies ; who cannot but be vio- 
lent executioners, seeing their ruin was sought 
by the rebellion. Is there any thing more igno- 
ble than ingratitude? And these traitors are 
ingrate ; seeing none can pretend to those arts, 
but such as have been by the bounty of these, 
against whom they rebel, advanced to that height, 
which hath made them giddy ; and to that favour 
with the people, upon which they bottom their 
hopes. And do not men and story talk more 
advantageously of footmen and slaves who have 
relieved their masters, than of the greatest of 
such as have rebelled against their princes ? 
All mankind being concerned to magnify that 
wherein their own safety is concerned ; and to 
decry these arts whereby their ruin is sought. 
That same people who cut Sejanus in as many 
pieces as he had once favourites, did raise a sta- 
tue to Pompey's slave, for staying by the car- 
case of his dead master. And as Alexander 
hanged Bessus, who had betrayed to him his 
master; Spitamenes and Antigonus caused to 
massacre these Higerspides, who had betrayed 
the gallant Eumenes. So Charles the Ninth of 
France, did refuse to punish such as had opposed 
him, when he was in rebellion; for, said he, 
Such as have been faithful to the king against 



MORAL GALLANTRY. SI 

me, when I was but Duke of Orleans, will be 
faithful to me, when I am raised from being Duke 
of Orleans, to be King of France. 

Inconstancy is likewise an ignoble vice, seeing 
it shows, that either men were foolish in their 
first choice, or that they were foolish in relin- 
quishing it; it shows, that men are too much 
subject to the impressions of others ; and small 
or light things are these which are soonest blown 
off from their first stations : whereas virtuous 
and constant persons do show their greatness in 
the impossibility of their being removed. This 
vice likewise is unfit for such as design great 
matters, seeing no party will care much to gain 
such for friends, whom they cannot retain ; and 
when they tell you that such are not worth their 
pains, they tell you how mean an esteem they 
put upon inconstancy. All affairs in the world 
are subject to change ; and it is most certain that 
some occasion or other will somewhat raise all 
parties. To be constant then to any one, will 
gain him who is fixed, the honour of being sure 
to his friends, which will magnify him amongst 
such as are in difference, and procure him respect 
even from his enemies ; who will admire him for 
that quality, which by insurin gtheir own friends 
to them, will advantage their interest more than 
they can be prejudged by him, as their enemy, 



52 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

how considerable soever he be. Augustus* great- 
ness cannot persuade the world to pardon him 
this fault ; nor can Cato's severity, nor self-mur- 
der, dissuade them from admiring that constancy, 
which had as much extraordinary gallantry in it 
as may be a remission for his crime : besides, 
that it made Caesar (even when his victories had 
raised him to his greatest height and vanity) re- 
gret the losing an opportunity to gain so great a 
person. 

There is amongst many others one effect of 
inconstancy, which I hate, as mean, and unworthy 
of a gentleman ; and that is, to alter friendships 
upon every elevation of fortune ; as if (forsooth) 
men were raised so high, that they cannot, fi;om 
these pinnacles, know such whom they have left 
upon the first level. But really this implies a 
weakness of sight in them, and no imperfection 
in their friends, upon whom they cast down their 
looks, and who continue still of their first stature, 
though the others eyes continue not to possess the 
same clearness. A generous person should not 
entertain so low thoughts of himself, as to think 
what is the gift of another, can add so much to 
his intrinsic value, as to make him confess in the 
undervaluing of his former friends, the meanness 
of his own parts, and former condition : and he 
obstructs extremely his own greatness, who ob- 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 53 

liges his friends, to stop and retard it ; as what 
may be disadvantageous to their interest, by rob- 
bing them of so rare an advantage as is a friend. 
Whereas the noblest trial of power is, to be able 
to raise these whom men honoured formerly with 
that title ; for by this, others will be invited to 
depend upon them ; and they may thereby justify 
their former choice ; and let the world see, that 
they never entered upon any friendship that was 
mean or low. Friendship, the greatest of com- 
manders, hath commanded us to stay by our 
friend; and he who quits the post assigned to 
him, is either cowardly, or a fool ; and a gentle- 
man should think it below his courage, as well 
asJbis friendship, to be boasted from a station 
which he thought so advantageous, out of either 
fate or interest : which recommends much to me 
that gallant rant in Lucan, when after he had pre- 
ferred Cato to other men, he in these words ex- 
tols him above the gods : — 

Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 

The gods did the victorious approve, 

But the great Cato did the vanquished love. 

But least my tediousness should make the constan- 
cy I plead for, seem a vice, I shall say no more 
of a subject, whereof I can never say enough. 
Drunkenness is so mean a vice, that I scorn 



54 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

to take notice of it ; knowing that none will al- 
low it, but such as are mad; and such as are 
mad are not to be reclaimed by moral discourses. 
Yet I cannot but press its meanness from this, 
that though Noah was a person of the greatest au- 
thority, his once being drunk is remarked in 
Scripture, to have made him despicable in the 
eyes even of his own children ; (whom he had 
also lately obliged to a more than natural respect, 
by saving them from that deluge, which drowned 
the rest of mankind in their sight). And yet he 
might have excused himself more than those of 
this age; as knowing not the strength of that 
new found wine: and having been . drunk but 
once, might have defended himself by curiosity, 
which too few now can allege. It is a mean and 
mad compliment, to requite the kindness £>f such 
as come to visit us, with forcing them (after the 
weariness of travel) to drink to such excess, that 
they commit and speak such follies, as make 
them return home from that strange place, with- 
out being remarked for any thing else, than the 
ridiculous expressions they vomited up with their 
stinking excrements. Why are servants turned 
out of doors, and each man (which is very mean) 
obliged to serve himself, when men enter upon 
that beastly employment ? Is it not, that ser- 
vants may not hear, or see what- extravagancies 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 55 

are there to be committed ? And is it not an ig- 
noble part in persons of honour, to do resolutely 
what they dare not own before the meanest who 
attend them? Men by this vice bring themselves 
to need their servants' legs to walk upon, and 
their eyes to see by ; but which is worse, they 
must be governed at that time by the servile dis- 
cretion of such, who will be emboldened by this, 
to undervalue both them and their commands ; 
and these masters are accounted wisest, who do 
most submissively follow their directions. Judge 
if that exercise can be noble, which in disabling 
us to serve our friends, make us incapable to 
discern the favours they do us; and measures 
its disadvantages by this, that when men have 
their senses benighted with the vapours of wine, 
they are thereby unfitted to lead armies, to as- 
sist at councils, to sit in judicatories, to attend 
ladies ; and differ nothing from being dead, but 
that they would be much more innocent if they 
were so. Men are then very ready to attack 
unjustly the honour of others, and most unable 
to defend their own; and such as they wrong- 
then, do with a scornful mercy pardon their fail- 
ings, with the very same disdain which makes 
them forgive fools or furious persons ; and that, 
in my judgment, should be the most touching of 
all affronts. And if we esteem roots according 



56 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

to the prettiness of the flowers they display, (as 
if they would give a grateful account to the sun, 
of what its warmness has produced,) certainly 
we will find drunkenness (as the Apostle speaks 
of avarice) the root of all bitterness. For this is 
that vice, which keeps men at present from at- 
tending such of their own, and of their friends' 
interests, as concern most their fame : and as to 
the future, begets such diseases and indisposi- 
tions, as makes their bodies unfit instruments 
for great achievements. And seeing to talk idly, 
(a character so unworthy, that a gentleman would 
scarce suffer another to give it of him, without 
hazarding his life in the revenge,) is the most 
pardonable of its errors, its other madness must 
be beyond all remission. By this, men are 
brought to disgorge the deepest buried secrets ; 
to reveal the intimacies, or asperse the names of 
ladies ; to enter upon foolish quarrels ; and the 
next morning either to abjure what they said, or 
fight unjustly their comrades ; and victory is not 
in that case rewarded with fame, but is tainted 
with the aspersion of drunken quarrel; and is 
not ascribed to courage, but to necessity. 

I confess, whoring is in this a more extensive 
vice than others; that it corrupts still two at once, 
for no man can sin so alone : but drinking (as if 
it scorned not to be the greatest vice) does sur- 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 57 

pass it in another quality ; which is, that one 
vicious person can force or tempt whole tables 
and companies to be drunk with him. And if 
great men should be known to love this vice, all 
such as have need to accost them, would be in 
danger, either by complacency or interest, to 
plunge themselves into this miserable excess. 
In other vices, men bebauch only their own ra- 
tional souls ; but here men add to that, the in- 
gratitude of employing against God and nature, 
these rents and estates, which were kept by pru- 
dence from more pious persons, that great men 
might by that testimony of his kindness, be en- 
gaged to a religious retribution. So that such 
as employ their estates in maintaining their 
drunkenness, commit almost the same sacrilege 
with Belteshazzar, who was terrified by a mira- 
culous hand upon the wall, delivering his fatal 
sentence, for carousing with his nobles in the 
sacred vessels that were robbed from the temple 
of Jerusalem. 

My employment, as well as philosophy, obliges 
me to implead injustice as the worst of vices ; 
because it wrongs the best of men, and the best 
of things ; the best of men, seeing they have still 
the best of pleas ; and so injustice can only reach 
them ; and these will not by flattery, bribing, or 
cheats, conciliate the esteem of such as have a 

H 



58 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

latitude, to return them this unjust advantage; 
which good men neither need, nor will accept. 
Injustice likewise debauches the laws, which is 
the best of things ; and in affronting whereof, of 
all others, great men are (when guilty) most un- 
great ; because it is their guardian and fence, by 
which they exact respect and treasures from 
others ; and without which such magistrates who 
are unjust, could not escape these hourly massa- 
cres, which a robbed and oppressed people would 
pour upon them. And though such as are ge- 
nerally unjust, intend thereby to compliment 
their friends, to repay old favours ; yet in effect 
this requital is as base, as if one should rob a 
church, to pay his particular debts. He is not 
worthy of your friendship, who will expect such 
returns: and virtue is not like vice, so penurious 
or poor, as that it cannot build upon any other 
foundation than the ruins of another. Such as 
intend by their injustice to gain esteem from the 
party advantaged thereby, are much mistaken ; 
for though they should gain the esteem thereby 
of one, yet they would lose that of many thou- 
sands ; and he who is wronged will disclose the 
injustice done him, more than the other dare 
brag of the favour. And I have myself heard, 
even the gainer hate and undervalue his unjust 
patron, loving not the traitor but the treason; 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 59 

considering, that by that precedent, himself was 
laid open to more hazard, than he thereby reaped 
of advantage ; for that same injustice which cen- 
sured him of his late conquest, made him unsure 
both of it, or all that he had or should gain 
thereafter. And to be unjust for a bribe, is as 
mean, as to serve in the worst of employments 
for a fee ; it is to be as base as a thief, and less 
noble than a robber; and it deserves all these 
base reproaches that are due to avarice, lying, 
flattery, ingratitude, treachery, and perjury; all 
which are sharers in this caper when it prospers, 
and when it prospers not, it leads to the ignoble 
ports, infamy, poverty, the scaffold, pillory, or 
gibbets. 

Though my having usurped so far upon the 
reader's patience, makes all 1 can say for the fu- 
ture criminal, yet such respect I owe, and such 
I bear to the memory of those noble patriots, 
who have by their public spiritedness, settled for 
us that peace, whose native product all our joys 
are, that I cannot but recommend that protecting 
virtue to such as live now, for the noblest orna- 
ment of a great soul ; and if our actions be spe- 
cified and measured by their objects, certainly 
those souls must be accounted greatest, which 
centre all their cases upon the public good ; 
scorning to wind up their designs upon so small 



60 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

a bottom, as is private interest. By this, the 
heathens became gods, and christians do by it 
(which is more) resemble theirs. This is the 
task of kings and princes ; whereas private inte- 
rest is the design of churls and cobblers: who can 
so justly expect universal praise, as those who 
design universal advantage ? And none will 
grudge, that riches should be carried into his 
treasures, who keeps them but as Joseph did his 
corn, in granaries, till others need to have their 
necessities supplied. 

These are deservedly styled Patres Patria, ; 
and it is accounted moral parricide, to wound 
the reputation of such as the commonwealth 
terms its parents. And when these treasures 
which private interest have robbed from the pub- 
lic, shall after they stained the acquirer with the 
names of avarice and cruelty, invite posterity to 
recall them from his offspring as not due to 
them ; then such as have, like providence, toiled 
only for the good of their country and mankind, 
shall find their fame, like medals, grow still the 
more illustrious, by all accessions of time; and 
that the new born generations shall augment the 
number of their admirers, more than following 
years can moulder away these heaps of coin, 
which avaricious men raised as a monument for 
their memory. Epaminondas is more famous 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 61 

and admired than Croesus ; and fame may be 
better believed concerning him, seeing he left 
neither gold nor money to bribe from it a suf- 
frage. And, albeit, he was so busied in raising 
the glory of his country, that he had no time to 
gain as much money, as to raise the meanest for 
his own; yet we find him at no loss thereby, see- 
ing each Theban assisted at his funeral as a 
mourner : and nature lays it as a duty upon all 
whom it brings to the world, to magnify him who 
endeavoured to resemble it, in the universalities 
of his favours. That glorious Roman, who threw 
himself into the devouring gulph, to divert the 
wrath of the gods from his country, did, in ex- 
change of a few years (which he might have 
lived) add an eternity of fame to his age ; and 
by the gloriousness of that action, has buried no- 
thing in that gulf, but his personal faults. And 
Brutus, by dying for his country, is not more 
justly called the last of Romans, than he may be 
called the first of men; and for my part, I think 
that he sacrificed Caesar rather as a victim to his 
injured country, than to his private malice. For 
as Mr. Cowley well remarks ; the pretext of 
friendship can be no reason, why a man should 
suffer without resentment, his mother to be vio- 
lated before his eyes. Paul likewise, whom grace 
had raised as much above these, as reason had 



62 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

raised these above others, was so zealous in this 
virtue, that after he had known the joys of heaven 
more intimately than others, who had not like him 
travelled through all these starry regions, yet such 
was his affection to his country, that he was con- 
tent to have his name expunged out of the book 
of life, that room might be made for theirs. But 
if men will love nothing but what will advance 
their private interest, they will at least, upon this 
score, love their country, because, when it be- 
comes famous, they will share in the advantage; 
as the being a Roman was sufficient to make one 
terrible when Rome flourished. And I imagine, 
that it was sufficient to incite one of that glorious 
republic, to undertake, or suffer the hardest of 
things, to remember him that he was a Roman ; 
and at all times the unacquainted still esteem us, 
according to the presumptions they can gather, 
from our country, race, and education. For 
besides that a hawk of a good nest is still pre- 
ferred, we see, that example and emulation, are 
the strongest motives that can either induce, or 
enable men to be noble and valorous; and though 
some term this but fancy ; yet granting it were 
no more, it is such a fancy as tends much to our 
honour; because it heightens in others a fear of 
us, and lessens in us the fear of them. I may 
then conclude with this; that as the rays of the 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 63 

sun are accounted a more noble light than any 
that is projected from a private candle, so amongst 
souls, those are the most excellent which respect 
most the advantage of others. 

I confess there are some vices, which by shroud- 
ing themselves under the appearance of good, 
do advance themselves too far in ill-governed 
esteems; as we see in ambition and revenge; yet 
to our severer inquiries it will appear, that ambi- 
tion is ignoble ; seeing such as desire to be pro- 
moted, confess the meanness of that state they 
press to leave. This vice obliges men to serve 
such as advance its designs, exchanging its pre- 
sent liberty, for but the uncertain expectation of 
commanding others; and paying greater respects 
to superiors for this expectation, than it will be 
able to exact from those whom it designs to sub- 
ject. What is advancement but the people's 
livery? And such as expect their happiness 
from them, must acknowledge that the rabble is 
greater and nobler than themselves : and by ex- 
changing their natural happiness, for that which 
is of its bestowing, they confess their own to be 
of the least value; for no man will exchange for 
what is worse. A courtier admiring the philo- 
sopher gathering his herbs, told him, That if he 
flattered the emperor, he needed not gather herbs; 
but was answered, That if he could satisfy him- 



64 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

self with herbs, he needed not flatter the empe- 
ror ; and without doubt flattery infers more de- 
pendence, than gathering of herbs. And in the 
dispute for liberty, Diogenes had the advantage 
of the Stagyrite, when he told him, Diogenes did 
dine when it pleased Diogenes; but Aristotle not 
till it pleased Alexander. 

Vanity is too airy a vice to be noble; for it is 
but a thin crust of pride ; and but a pretending 
cadet of that gallant sin : it is, I confess, less hurt- 
ful than pride, because it magnifies itself, without 
disparaging others ; (for if we admire others when 
compared with ourselves, we are not vain, but 
proud,) and it is oft the spur to great actions; 
being to our undertakings, what some poisons 
are to medicines ; which, though they be hurtful 
in a dose apart, yet make the compounds enter 
more operative and pointed. And I have heard 
some defend, that vanity was no sin; because, in 
admiring ourselves at a greater rate than we de- 
served, we, without detracting from our neigh- 
bour, heightened our debt to our Maker; which 
might be an error, but was no fault. But vanity, 
being an error in our judgment, it cannot but 
be mean, as all errors are ignoble : and he is a 
very fool (which is the ignoblest of names) who 
understands not himself; he who understands 
not his own measures, cannot govern himself; 



MOKAL GALLANTRY. 65 

and so is unfit to govern others ; and it is the 
employment of a great soul, rather to do things 
worthy to be admired, than to admire what him- 
self hath done. But leaving to pursue the crowd 
of its ill effects, I shall single out some of these 
I judge most enemies to true gallantry; amongst 
which, I scruple not to prefer in meanness, the 
being vain of prosperity, and derived power: 
which shows, that we prefer and admire more 
what others can bestow, than what we possess 
ourselves; whereas virtuous persons may just- 
ly think, that nothing can make them greater ; 
and to be vain of prosperity, shows we cannot 
bear it; and so concludes us under a weak- 
ness; to take advantages of others, when we 
are more powerful than they, is as base, as it 
is for an armed man to force his enemy to fight, 
when he has no weapon: this is cowardliness 
not courage; and who defers not his revenge 
till his rival be equal with him, implies a fear of 
grappling upon equal terms. That one expres- 
sion, of one of the kings of France, That he 
scorned when he was king of France, to remem- 
ber the wrongs done to the duke of Orleans, 
makes his name grateful in history : and if great 
men would reflect seriously, how a word from 
him they serve, (though but a man, who must 
himself yield oftimes to a mean disaster,) or 



<S6 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

how the least error in their own conduct, can 
overturn the fixedst of their endeavours ; and 
make them, in being unfortunate, ridiculous 
withal ; certainly they would call this presump- 
tion rather madness than vanity; and would 
conclude it more gallant, to bear adversity with 
a generous courage, than to be a fool or flattered 
by prosperity ; which vanquishes as oft these for 
whom, as these against whom it fights. 

Neither can I leave this period, till I inveigh 
against that meanest of vanities^ whereby men are 
vain of estates and territories : for, seeing man is 
born lord of all the world, why should he retrench 
his own right, by glorying in so little a part of it 
that his share will escape an exact geographer. 
I wish such would remember, that Pompey be- 
stowed kingdoms upon his slaves ; and yet Epic - 
tetus, who was a slave, is more admired than he; 
and yet admired for nothing but his virtue ; and 
why should men be proud of enjoying that, upon 
which the meanest beggar pours out his excre- 
ments : if these be vain, because they may call 
it their own, what hath the master, but that (as 
Solomon says) he behold eth it with his eyes ? 
And at this rate I may glory, in that the glorious 
heavens are spread over me ; for I may behold 
the one with as impropriating eyes as he can do 
the other. And he who wants a tomb, which 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 67 

these have, hath the heaven for a vault and bu- 
rying place; — Ccelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam. 

But if the answer be, that these rents will al- 
low them the keeping of a table for their gran- 
deur (which I wish were the only excuse), that 
answer makes them servants, and burdens them 
with a necessity to provide for such as they en- 
tertain ; and so they are vain of being servants, 
and servants to such as will rise from their table 
to read and admire above them, Plato, Socrates, 
or, which is less, the author of a well-contrived 
play. But to leave this folly, — these may have 
some pretext for preferring their own estates 
above those of others, but why should they ad- 
mire themselves for their estates ? Which is 
no part of themselves, and so they should not 
in reason think better of themselves than others 
for it. Under the same condemnation fall such 
as are vain of their horses, lacqueys, or such- 
like things, which is most unjust, except their 
horses and they were all one. 

Such as crust themselves over with embroide- 
ries, and after they have divided their time be- 
twixt their comb and their mirrors, are vain of 
these silly toys which are the creatures and work- 
manship of servants, must be certainly very low 
and mean-spirited, when they imagine to add to 
their natural value, by things that have no value 



68 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

in them, but what our fancy (which is the most 
despicable quality of that soul they neglect) gives 
them. And do not they among the rest of man- 
kind, disparage very much even these mistresses 
upon whom they bestow these adorations, which 
they deny their mighty Maker, when they ima- 
gine by such contemptible means, to screw them- 
selves into their esteem ? How ignobly under- 
value they their own thoughts — the noble con- 
versation of excellent men and accurate books 
(to write some whereof, Caesar and the greatest 
of the emperors have laid aside their swords) — 
when they impend upon ribbons and laces, that 
age of time, which would be misemployed, 
though it were let but out in moments, upon such 
womanly exercise ? But if ladies or their suitors 
will magnify these handsome shapes and colours, 
which are too often bestowed upon them, to re- 
pair the want of these noble qualities, of which 
those who are masters may be more justly vain, 
why are not they afraid, by whoring, fairding, 
drinking, gluttony, or macerating envy, to blast 
these florid advantages, upon which themselves 
do, and would have others to dote ? 

I must here endeavour to subdue one error ; 
which is by so much the more dangerous, that it 
wears the fairest mask of all other vices : and this 
is that whereby men are induced to believe, that 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 69 

true honour is but a consequent of preferment ; 
and that preferments seldom without honour; but 
honour comes never without preferment ; and not 
only are the lees of the people taken with this opin- 
ion, but the gallantest of men, who are sphered far 
above those, do in this, slide easily into the sense 
of the neighbourhood. Yet it remains still an 
error ; for true honour is an innate elevation of 
the soul, whereby it scorns every thing which is 
more mortal than himself: and nothing is more 
frail than preferment, whose paint is washed off 
by the least storm, and whose being depends 
upon the fancy or humour of others : whereas, 
true honour is independent ; and, as it cannot 
flow from any other, so it cannot stoop to them. 
He is truly gallant, whose innocence fears not the 
jurisdiction of men ; and who looks upon sceptres, 
and such gilded trifles as impertinent toys, when 
they are not swayed by the hand of virtue ; and 
who would not value power for any other end, but 
to be a second to these inclinations, which are 
so reasonable, that they should not need power 
to make them to be obeyed ! Tyrants can 
bestow the tallest preferments, but they cannot 
make men truly honourable ; which shows that 
these two differ. And Heliogabolus' cook was 
still but a base fellow, though his master's dot- 
ing made him as great as were his own vices. 



70 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

A statue becomes not taller by the height of 
its basis; nor a head more wise or noble for 
being adorned with a shaggy plumage. Julius 
Caesar, though no emperor, has a more lasting 
glory than Tiberius, who was so : and Cata 
gloried more in that the people asked why he 
was not preferred, than he would have done in 
enjoying the greatest honours they had to be- 
stow. Preferment is but the creation of men ; 
but true honour is of God's own creation ; and 
as we should esteem this last, as a piece done 
by the nobler master, so we should love it best, 
because it is more our own, than what rises from 
another's favour. Greatness, when most advan- 
tageously bestowed, can but produce love or 
fear; to beget fear is not noble, because the 
Devil doth this most ; and these who come next 
to him in baseness, come nearest to him in this ; 
brutes, savages, and madmen, have sufficiency 
enough for that undertaking : but to beget love 
is peculiar to true honour ; and so generous a 
passion is love, that it is soonest elicit, when 
least commanded. A virtuous person is like- 
wise a greater governor, than he who suffers 
himself to be commanded by a vicious woman, 
and a thirsty appetite ; or than that king who 
suffers himself to be led by the ears with flat- 
terers, and to be forced by his own pride to 



MORAL, GALLANTRY. 71 

disobey his reason, by which alone he is truly 
great ; and which when any man disowns abso- 
lutely, he is to be thrown into a dungeon or 
bedlam. Preferment leaves and obliges us to 
bow to others for satisfying our interest ; so that 
interest is confessed by great men to be greater 
than they : but virtue and true honour teacheth 
us to subject our interest to ourselves, and puts 
it in our own power to make ourselves happy. 
And what a pilot is in the ship, a general in an 
army, the soul in the body, that is a philosopher 
amongst these with whom he converses. Nee 
enim unquam in tan turn sic convalesce t nequitia ; 
nunquam sic contra virtutes conjurabitur ; ut non 
virtutis nomen venerabile et sacrum maneat. — Sen. 
Epist. 14. To which purpose I must cite Stat. 
Silv. 

Vive Mitle gazis, et Lido ditior auro, 
Troica et Euphrate supra diademata felix, 
Quern non ambigui fasces non mobile vulgus, 
Spemque metumque domas, vitio sublimior omni. 
Exemptus fatis. 

In revenge, we must use instruments who 
exact more and will upbraid us more than the 
law will do when it satisfies us our wrongs. 
And does not the philosopher, who denies that 
he can be wronged, more nobly than he who 
confesses, that he is both subject to wrongs and 



72 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

hath received so great a one, that he cannot but 
pursue his revenge? He who conceals his 
wrongs, is only wronged in private, whilst he 
who revenges his wrong, is wronged in public ; 
and certainly the public wrong is more ignoble. 
And, seeing we conceive ourselves concerned in 
honour to punish such as would divulge an af- 
front that was smothered as soon as given, we 
cannot be said to wrong our own honour, when 
we in seeking revenge proclaim such wrongs as 
had else either vanished or been lessened by the 
concealment ; which remembers me of a story 
that goes of an old man, at whose bald head a 
rotten orange being thrown in the street, clapt 
his hat upon it, and said, I shall spoil the vil- 
lain's sport, who expected me to come showing 
my head all besmeared over, and complaining 
of the injury. It is one of the most picquant 
revenges, to undervalue our enemies so far as 
not to think them worthy of our noticing ; and 
we show ourselves to be greater than they, when 
we let the world see that they cannot trouble us. 
When children and fools do the same things 
that we fret at in others of more advanced years, 
we pass them without a frown ; which shows, 
that it is not the acts done us by our enemies, 
but our own resentment, which in effect injures 
us ; so that it is still in our power to vex such 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 73 

as design to affront us, by laughing at, or under- 
valuing these, and such-like little endeavours, 
as what cannot reach our happiness. He who 
pardons, proclaims that by so doing he fears not 
his enemies for the future ; but revenge implies 
a fear of what we desire upon that account to 
lessen. Thus cowards, and none but they, are 
cruel ; seeing they then only account themselves 
secure when their enemies have lost all capacity 
to resist. In revenge, we act the executioner, 
but we personate a prince when we pardon; 
in the one we bestow a favour, and so are noble, 
but in the other we disclose our infirmity, which 
is ignoble. 

I admire passive courage, as a virtue which 
deserves its palms best of all others, because it 
toils most for them. Honours and rewards are 
but gifts to them, but they are conquests to it ; 
and it merits as much praise as it meets with in- 
juries. Avida est periculi virtus, et quo tendant 
nnn quid passura sit, cogitat ; quoniam et quod 
passura est ; gloria pars est : — This virtue hath 
rather a greediness for, than a desire to find 
dangers ; and seeing its sufferings make the 
greatest part of its glory, it runs out to meet 
them, thinking that to attend them is a degree 
of cowardliness. And if we remark narrowly, 
we will find that all other virtues owe their gal- 

K 



74 MORAL GALLANTRY. 

lantry to this, and have no other title to that 
glorious quality but in so far as they borrow ex- 
cellencies from it. Friendship is then only gal- 
lant, when to gratify our friends we expose to 
injuries for them either our persons or interest. 
Gratitude is then noble, when we consider not 
what we are to suffer, but what we owe, or 
(which is more gallant) what is requisite for the 
service of such ^,s have obliged us. Justice is 
always excellent, but is then only most to be 
admired, when we resist temptations, and where 
we resolve to suffer, for having been just, the 
envy and rage of these, who consider only how 
much they have been prejudged, but not how 
much the public good hath been thereby advan- 
ced. 

But thus it is that a virtuous person shows 
how great he truly is ; and that power and com- 
mand were the instruments only, but not parts 
of his former worth. He who yields to afflic- 
tion, shows that those who inflict it are greater 
than himself, but he who braves it, shows that 
it is not in the power of any thing but of guilt 
to make him tremble. It is easy for one who is 
assisted by power and fate to urge these advan- 
tages, but to dare these, shows a pitch beyond 
them ; and this induces me to think, that pas- 
sive courage is more noble than what is active. 



MORAL GALLANTRY. 75 

For one who fights gallantly in an open field, 
and in the view or front of an army, is assisted 
by the example of others, by hope of revenge, 
or victory, and needs not much fear that death 
which he may shun as probably as meet; but 
he who in a noble quarrel adorns that scaffold 
whereupon he is to suffer, evinces that he can 
master fate, and make danger less than his 
courage, and to serve him in acquiring fame 
and honour. But this virtue deserves a larger 
room than my present weariness will allow it in 
this paper, and therefore I will leave it for praises 
to its own native excellencies. 

I shall (my lords and gentlemen) leave these 
reflections to your own improvement ; for I am 
confident, that the heat of your own zeal for 
virtue, will kindle in your breasts such noble 
flames, as that by their blaze ye may see further 
into this subject than I can discover : and in 
this essay I desire to be esteemed no otherwise 
presumptuous, than a servant is, who lights his 
master up these stairs which himself intends to 
mount. 



MORAL PARADOX : 

MAINTAINING THAT IT IS MUCH EASIER TO BE 
VIRTUOUS THAN VICIOUS. 

They weary themselves to commit iniquity — J E R. ix. 5. 

AS these spies deserved ill of the Israelitish 
camp (Numb, xiii.) ; who having inflamed their 
breasts with desires of conquering Canaan, by 
presenting them of its vines, who each cluster 
was a vintage, and each grape a bottle; did 
thereafter, by a cruel parricide, destroy these 
same inclinations which they had begot, by tell- 
ing these their hopeful brethren, That the coun- 
try was as unconquerable, as pleasant ; and that 
its men were giants, as well as its fruits. So by 
the same measures we have reason to fear, that 



78 A MORAL PARADOX. 

these divines and moralists are unhappy guides 
to us poor mortals ; who after they have edged 
our inclinations for virtue, as the most satisfying 
of all objects, do thereafter assure us, that it is 
attended with as much difficulty as it is furnished 
with pleasure ; and that like some coy lady, it 
possesses charms, not to satisfy, but to exact our 
longings. This unfortunate error hath in all 
probability, sprung either from the vanity of 
these bastard philosophers, who have cheated the 
people into an esteem for themselves, as virtuous, 
resolved by the second artifice, to heighten that 
esteem, by persuading these their admirers, that 
virtue was a work of much difficulty, as it met 
with praise ; or else from the zeal of some preach- 
ers, who to make us antedate our repentance, 
resolved to persuade us, that faith and these 
other spiritual virtues, could not but be hardly 
attainable, as certainly they are, when moral 
virtue, which was a lower story of perfection, 
was of so difficult an ascent; or else, which is 
yet most probable, our laziness and vicious habits 
being called to an account for these misfortunes, 
which they occasion, have run themselves under 
the protection of this defence, That virtue is 
most difficult and uneasy, and is destitute of both 
pleasure and advantage : by which conceit, many 
are dissuaded in this age from undertaking a re-. 



A MORAL PARADOX. 79 

solution of being virtuous, though otherwise 
they much honour it; and wickedness is not 
only furnished by this with an excuse to detain 
such as it hath already overtaken, but with 
charms to entangle these who are yet stated in 
an indifferency for either. And though the heat 
of zeal in preachers, should not be too much dis- 
proved in this age ; wherein the coldness of 
their hearers' charity, needs those warmer influ- 
ences : and though they may be allowed to bend 
our crooked humours to the contrary side of 
what they incline to, of design to bring them to 
a desired straightness ; yet if we consider that 
infallible theology, delivered by our Saviour, 
we may find, that He invited His disciples, by 
assuring them, That his yoke was easy, and his 
burden very light ; and by upbraiding them, for 
wearying themselves with their sins, and for troub- 
ling themselves about many things. And since 
the former artifice hath either, by being too fa- 
miliarly preached, lost its operation with such 
as love curiosity ; or by being too severely prest, 
discouraged too much these who love too well 
their own flesh and blood, to welcome any doctrine 
that stands so opposite to it : I wish these same 
preachers would now endeavour to reclaim man- 
kind, by assuring them, that virtue is much easier, 
and much more advantageous than vice; imita- 



80 A MORAL PARADOX. 

ting in this their great master, who after his 
disciples had wearied themselves with catching 
no fish all the night over, did, by persuading 
them to throw out their nets upon the other side 
of the boat, put them on the way of catching 
more at one draught, than they had catched in 
their former whole night's fishing. But leaving 
(with much resignation) my ghostly fathers to 
manage the course of our devotion, as their know- 
ledge and piety shall judge most fit, I shall 
endeavour to clear from reason and experi- 
ence, that moral virtue is of less weariness, 
and suits better with our natural inclinations, 
than vice or passion doth. And although I 
fail in an undertaking, which is too noble an 
enterprize to receive its accomplishment from so 
weak a hand, yet if I shall excite others, out of 
pity to me, or glory because of the subject, to 
defend what I could not, or to love that virtue 
which I recommend, I shall rest satisfied with a 
return, which because it will be above my merit, 
I have already placed above my expectation; 
and so I may meet with a foil, but cannot with 
a disappointment. 

All creatures design ease ; and for this not 
only brutes do toil, but inanimate things like- 
wise show for it so much of inclination, that they 
will destroy all intermediate objects, that hinder 



A MORAL PARADOX. 81 

them for joining to their centre, to which they 
have no other tendency, but because they find 
that ease which is desired by their nature ; and 
because all things find ease in it, therefore all 
things flee thither, as to the loveliest of all sta- 
tions. And that happiness consists in ease, is 
clear from this — That either we want that we 
need, as the accomplishment of our nature, and 
then nature must move towards the acquisition 
of what it wants ; or else we want nothing, and 
then nature will enjoy itself without any farther 
motion — nam natura nihil agit frustra ; and it 
were most frustraneous for nature, to seek what 
it wants not: from which we may conclude, 
when we see any creature restless, and in mo- 
tion, that certainly it either wants something to 
which it moves, or is oppressed by a surcharge 
of somewhat, from which it flies. This hath 
made philosophers conclude, That all motion 
tends to some rest: lawyers, That all debates 
respect some decision ; statesmen, That all war 
is made in order to peace; physicians, That 
all fermentations or boiling of the blood or hu- 
mours, betokens some dissatisfaction in the part 
affected, (and to show how much happiness they 
place in ease, they term all sickness diseases,) 
which imports nothing more than the absence 
of ease, that happiest of states, and root of all 

L 



82 A MORAL PARADOX. 

perfections. And that divinity may sing a part 
in this requiem, scripture tells us, That God 
hallowed the seventh day, because upon it He 
rested from his creation; and that heaven is 
called an eternal Sabbath, because there we shall 
find ease from all our labours ; there God is said, 
when well pleased, to have savoured a sweet savour 
of rest ; and He recommends his own gospel as 
a burden that is easy. That then wherewith I 
shall task myself in this discourse, shall be to 
prove, That Virtue is more easy than Vice. 

For clearing whereof, consider, that all men 
who design either honour, riches, or to live hap- 
pily in the world, do either intend to be virtuous, 
or at least pretend it; these who resolve to destroy 
the liberties of the people, will style themselves 
keepers of their liberties ; and such as laugh at 
all religion, will have themselves believed to be 
reformers ; and of these too the pretenders have 
the difficultest part, for they must not only be at 
all that pains which is requisite in being virtuous, 
but they must superadd to these all the troubles 
that dissimulation requires ; which certainly is a 
new and greater task than the other; and not 
only so, but these must over-act virtue, upon de- 
sign to take off that jealousy, which because they 
are conscious to themselves to deserve, they 
therefore vex themselves to remove. Moses, the 



" A MOKAL PAKADOX. 83 

first, and amongst the best of the reformers, was 
the meekest man upon the face of the earth; but 
Jehu, who was but a counterfeit zealot, drove 
furiously, and called up by-standers to see, what 
else he knew they had reason not to believe; 
and the justest of all Israel's chairmen, took not 
so much pains to execute justice, as Absalom, 
who is said to have staid as long in the gates of 
Jerusalem, as the sun staid above them, inform- 
ing himself of all persons and affairs, though 
with as little design to redress their wrongs, as 
he showed much inclination to know them ; and 
all this, that the people might be gained to be 
the instruments of his unnatural rebellion : and 
such is the laboriousness of these seeming copies 
of virtue, that in our ordinary conversation we 
are still jealous of such as are too studious to 
appear virtuous ; though we have no other rea- 
son to doubt their sincerity, but what arises from 
their too great pains. From which we may con- 
clude, that these who intend to be virtuous, have 
a much easier task than these pretenders have ; 
because they have not their own conscience, nor 
the jealousness of others to wrestle against; and 
which is yet worse, these want that habit of vir- 
tue which renders all the pains of such as are 
really virtuous easy to them : and what is more 
difficult, than for these to act against custom, 



84 A MORAL PARADOX. 

which time renders a second nature ; and which, 
as shall be said hereafter, is so prevalent as to 
facilitate to virtuous persons the hardest part of 
what virtue commands ? Besides this, these dis- 
semblers have a difficult part to act, seeing they 
act against their own inclination ; which is to of- 
fer violence to nature, and the working not only 
without the help of that strongest of all seconds, 
but the toiling against it, and all the assistance it 
can give; which how great a torment it proves, 
appears from this, that such as have as much 
generosity as may entitle them to the name of 
man, Will rather weary out the rage of torture, 
than injure their own inclinations. I imagine 
that Haman was much distressed, by being put 
to lead Mordecai's horse, in compliance with 
his master's command ; and one who is obliged 
by that interest which makes him dissemble, to 
counterfeit a kindness for one whom he hates, or 
amit an applause of What he undervalues, is cer- 
tainly by that necessity more cruciate, by a thou- 
sand stages, than such as intend upon a virtuous 
account to love the person, and really to praise 
that in him, which they are forced to commend ; 
which is so far from being a torment, when it is 
truly virtuous, that real love makes him who has 
it, hungry of an occasion to show it, and to pur- 
sue all means for heightening that applause, 



A MORAL PARADOX. 85 

which torments the other. Consider what diffi- 
culty we find in going one way, whilst we look 
another, and with what hazard of stumbling that 
attempt is attended, and ye will find both much 
difficulty and hazard to wait on dissimulation; 
wherein we are tied to a double task; for we 
must do what we intend, because of our inclina- 
tions ; and what we pretend, because of our pro- 
fession ; and if we fail in either, which is more 
probably, than where simplicity only is professed, 
(two tasks being difficulter than one,) then the 
world laughs at us, for failing in what we pro- 
posed ; and if we fret at ourselves, for failing in 
what we privately designed. And not only does 
dissimulation tie us to a double, but it obliges us 
to two contrary tasks ; for we needed not dis- 
semble, if what we intend be not contrary to 
what we pretend : and thus men in dissimulation 
do but (like Penelope) undo in the night, what 
they were forced to do in the daytime. 

Dissimulation makes vice likewise the more 
difficult, in that dissemblers are never able to 
recover the loss they sustain by one escape ; for 
if they be catched in their dissimulation, or 
dogged out to be impostors, (which they can- 
not miss, but by a more watchful attendance 
than any that virtue requires,) then they of 
all persons are most hated ; not only by these 



86 A MORAL PARADOX. 

whom they intended to cheat, but by all others, 
though unconcerned in the crime; and both 
the one and the other do yet hate it, as what 
strikes at the root of all human society ; and for 
this cause, murder under trust is accounted so 
impious and sacrilegious a breach of friend- 
ship, that lawyers have heightened its punishment 
from that of ordinary murder, to that of treason ; 
and the grossest politicians have confest this dis- 
simulation to be so horrid a crime, that it was 
not to be committed for a less hire than of a 
kingdom: whereas virtuous persons have their 
escapes oftener pitied than punished; both be- 
cause these escapes are imputed to no abiding 
habit, and because it is not to be feared that 
they will offend for the future ; seeing what they 
last failed in, was not the effect of any innate 
and permanent quality, but was but a transient 
and designless frailty. 

Dissimulation is from this, likewise, more pain- 
ful than virtue, which it emulates, that the dis- 
sembler is obliged not only so to dissemble, as 
that these whom he intends to cheat, may believe 
him serious, but so, likewise, as that others may 
understand that he is not serious. Thus I have 
myself seen a gentleman, who dissembled a love 
and fondness for one whom he was obliged to 
persuade that she was his mistress, act so covertly 



A MORAL PARADOX. 87 

that perfidious part, that his real mistress was 
really jealous that he dissembled with her, and 
not with the other ; and to remove this, put the 
gallant to as much new pains as his former cheat 
had cost him. And I have heard of the like 
accidents, though in different actions ; — as of a 
rebel, who counterfeited loyalty so, that his 
complices did really distrust his fixedness to 
these damned principles which he still retained. 
And in ordinary conversation ye will often find, 
that in dissembling with the one party, ye lose 
still the other ; and it is impossible to regain 
them who are so lost, but by a shameful disco- 
very of the former cheat : and after all that loss, 
this doubt is still left, — How can I know but 
this man dissembles with me, who is so exqui- 
site in that art, as even to have made me jealous, 
that his dissimulation was not counterfeit ? 

Let us a little consider how few instruments 
virtue requires, and we will find it easy to be 
virtuous ; it requires no arms, exchequer, guards, 
nor garrison ; it is all these to itself, in every 
sense wherein it needs them. Whereas, vice is 
a burden to its votaries, as well in the abun- 
dance of those attendants which it requires, as 
in the difficulty of those attainments which it 
proposes. And this is that happy topic from 
which our wise Saviour reproved Martha, when 



88 A MORAL PARADOX. 

He told her, That she wearied herself about many 
things, whereas there was one thing necessary. By 
which, seeing he commended devotion, I may 
well press from it the excellency of moral vir- 
tue. The ambitious man is obliged to have his 
house planted with a wood of partizans, as well 
to secure that condition which so many envy and 
rival, as to magnify himself by so unequalled 
attendance. This desire to command, made 
Hannibal force a passage through the rocky 
Alps, — Caesar to commit himself to the mercy 
*)f a stormy sea, and so many weary journeys : 
— this obliged Xerxes to entertain vast navies, 
and Darius such armies, as reduced all man- 
kind into one incorporation. And so much doth 
ambition tie its dependers to depend upon such 
numbers, that though that army of lacqueys 
which attend them signifies no more than so 
many following cyphers, yet the subtracting of 
any of these doth by so much lessen the value of 
what they follow. Doth not pride require flat- 
terers, and those flatterers salaries, and the pro- 
vision of those salaries much pains and anxiety ? 
— Doth not it require precedency ? — A suitable 
estate and applause ? — And are not these inat- 
tainable, without more toil and fatigue than any 
thing that virtue enjoins? Covetousness re- 
quires assiduous drudgery, and mines as bot- 



A MORAL PARADOX. 89 

tomless as the desires which crave them; it 
craves every thing which itself can imagine. 
Luxury seeks only after what is unusual, and 
what is rare: it must, in Apicius, crave food 
from the Indies, — fetch to Rome, in Helioga- 
balus, fishes when far from the sea, — and more 
for one belly, than might enrich thousands of 
nobler creatures. Lust requires plurality of 
women, abundance of strength, numbers of 
pimps, and much money ; whereas virtue craves 
only what is fit, and persuades us to believe 
that only to be fit which is absolutely necessary. 
Cato's table is completely furnished with one 
dish, and his body with one vesture : 

Hide cquilcc vicisse famem. 

And the philosopher, going by well and rich 
furnished shops, could cry out with pleasure, — 
Oh ! how many things are there of which I 
stand not in need ! Not only are these many 
instruments troublesome, because they are su- 
perfluous, but likewise because by their number 
they add to these natural necessities, under which 
even virtuous men are weighed, as long as they 
are men. These who have so numerous fami- 
lies, cannot remove when their necessity calls 
them ; but they must expect till their retinue be 

M 



90 A MORAL PARADOX. 

ready ; and when these are prepared, it is no 
easy clog to draw so many after them ; or when 
any misfortune overtakes any of these many, 
they must suffer in these as oft as each of these 
suffers in themselves ; and their miseries are 
augmented by every new increment that is ad- 
ded to their fortunes. A great treasure is not 
only an enticement to make its master be as- 
saulted, or betrayed, but is likewise uneasy to 
be transported; and Crcesus' many bags are 
overtaken, when moneyless Solon escapes with 
safety. I shall then conclude — That virtue is 
easier than vice, because it requires fewer in- 
struments. 

Virtue is likewise easy, because it is fitted for 
all places and occasions ; whereas vice is stinted 
to select ones. One may be just every where ; 
but bribing requires opportunity, meditation of 
others, and that these others be dexterous in 
the conveyance, and close as to their humour. 
Adultery must busy itself to find a convenient 
room; it. requires the husband's absence — a 
faithful, and yet a faithless servant ; and albeit 
with the concourse of these provisions, it may 
attain its aim oftener than it is fit, yet will it 
want that satisfaction oftener than it wishes : 
whereas chastity is circumscribed by no such 



A MORAL PARADOX. 91 

limits; but it is as free as pure, depending 
upon nothing that is extrinsic, and debtor for 
its happiness to nothing that is not itself. 

I cannot here but reproach vice for tying us, 
not only to place, times, and numbers of instru- 
ments, but, which is worse, for referring all our 
endeavours to designs that are either unfeasible 
in themselves, or, at best, do become so because 
of our fancy or excess. Vanity is not satisfied 
without applause from others ; which being an 
act of their free-will who bestow it, doth there- 
fore depend upon their election : whereas virtue 
is satisfied with its own testimony ; and is satis- 
fied with nothing that others say, except it be 
bottomed upon what they are conscious to them- 
selves to deserve. Advancement proceeds not 
from him who desires it, but he must expect it 
from another ; and no man can satisfy his own 
lust. O then, happy virtue ! who art thy own 
treasure and expectation, thou alone mayest dote 
upon thyself, without a fault ; and in thee only, 
self-love is no way criminal : whereas vice is 
uneasy, because it fetches its satisfactions from 
abroad ; and is barren, because it cannot find 
them at home. Covetousness must scorch in 
Indies its suitors ; it must freeze them in Nova 
Zembla ; it terrifies them at sea, and shipwrecks 
them upon the shore : whilst virtue recom- 



92 A MOllAL PARADOX. 

mends to us, to seek our happiness in no foreign 
pleasure : and Diogenes finds without danger 
in his tub, what these sailors pursue in their 
dangerous bottoms. But vice might plead itself 
less guilty, if its design was only difficult ; but 
difficulty is not all — for vice either requires what 
is impossible, or what, by not being bounded, 
may very easily become so. Covetousness makes 
nothing enough, and proposes not only what 
may satisfy, but what may be acquired. Ambi- 
tion likewise will have every man to be highest ; 
which is impossible, because there cannot be many 
highest; and the first attainer leaves nothing to his 
implacable rivals, but the impatience of being dis- 
appointed ; which not only disquiets their present 
ease, but begets in them projects of attacking 
him by whom they conceive themselves van- 
quished: and these designs being formed by 
persons whose judgments are much disordered 
by interest, (which like fired powder, flees out 
not always where it may,) and against persons 
already secured by power, fame, law, and other 
advantages, they ripen into no other issue, than 
a last ruin to these who were so foolish, as not 
to satisfy their present humour with their pre- 
sent fortune. 

Philosophers have divided all vices into these 
which consist in excess, and these which imply 



A MORAL PARADOX. 93 

a defect ; the one shooting as far over the mark 
as the other comes short of it ; and if we compare 
virtue with either of these, we will find it more 
easy than either ; for as to these which overreach 
virtue, they must be as much more uneasy than 
it, as they exceed it ; for having all in them 
which that virtue possesses which they exceed, 
they must require either in acquisition or main- 
tenance, all the pains that the exceeded virtue 
extracts. Thus prodigality requires all the 
spending and pains that liberality needs; and 
running equally with all its length, it begins to 
require more pains and travel where it outshoots 
the other : and thus prodigality bestows not only 
enough as liberality does, but it lavishes out 
more than is fit, taking for the standard of its 
bounty, all that it hath to bestow ; and not either 
what itself can spare, or what its object needs : 
jealousy pains itself more than true love, with all 
those extravagancies, which are so insufferable 
to the party loved, and so disquieting to the 
lover himself, that physicians have accounted this 
a disease, and the law hath made it a crime. 
As to these vices, which by being placed in de- 
fect, seem to require less trouble than the virtue 
they fall short of; as the others require more, 
because of their excess ; yet so uneasy is vice, 
that even these, though they exceed not virtue 



94 A MORAL PARADOX. 

in their measures, do yet exceed it in their toil : 
for nature designs accomplishment in all its pro- 
ductions ; and therefore frets, and is disquieted 
at these immature effects ; and is as much more 
wounded by these than by virtuous productions, 
as the crafts are by being spoiled of their greener 
fruits, or as a woman by her too early birth. 
We see a miser more cruciate by his scanting 
penuriousness, than a noble person by his gene- 
rous liberality: for these are obliged to keep 
themselves out of these occasions of spending, — a 
task great enough, because all men endeavour, 
both out of envy, and out of humour and sport, 
to draw them unto these snares, and when they 
are within their own circle, they are forced by 
that restless vice, to descend to thousands of 
tricks, which are as wearying as unhandsome. 
I have seen some so careful of their estates, that 
they brooked better to have their names and 
souls burdened, than these; and to preserve 
which, they were at more trouble, than any can 
have the faith to believe, besides these who had 
the humour so to do. If to hold or draw with 
our full force be a trouble, both these are the 
postures of covetousness, wherewith it is kept 
upon constant guard, and hi continual employ- 
ment ; and if at any time they remit any thing 
of that anxiety, they repine at their own negli- 



A MORAL PARADOX. 95 

gence, and imagine that they lost as much as 
they hoped once to have gained. Fear is the 
defect of courage, but yet it is more uneasy than 
courage ; and really this alone hath more uneasi- 
ness, than all the fraternity of virtues; for virtue 
is at worst busied about what is : but fear is af- 
frighted at what is not, equally with what is. 

Vice likewise is therefore less easy than virtue, 
because virtue proposes only one aim, which is 
fixed and stable ; whilst vice and fancy leave us 
to undetermination, that is uneasy as well as 
dangerous. When it hath prest us, to make 
armies fall as sacrificed to the idol of our ambi- 
tion ; and for humouring that passion, to bring 
cities as well as men level to the ground ; then 
it will in the next thought persuade us even to 
laugh at our ambition, and to exchange it for 
love to a mistress or companionry, as it once 
served the otherwise great Alexander. 

As virtue makes good neighbours, so all the 
virtues are so far such amongst themselves, that 
not only they interfere not with one another ; but 
the exercise likewise of the one, facilitates the 
practice of the others : thus whilst we practice 
temperance, we learn to be just ; because tem- 
perance is the just measure of enjoying and using 
all contingents ; and we learn by it to be patient ; 
patience being a temperance in grief, sorrow or 



9G A MORAL PARADOX. 

affliction : patience is likewise the exercise of 
fortitude ; and fortitude is a just proportion of 
courage, and a temperate exercise of boldness. 
And this occasioned the philosophers to term 
this noble alliance, the golden chain of virtue ; 
each being linked with, and depending upon its 
fellow. But if we turn the prospect we will find, 
that though dissention be a special vice so char- 
actered, yet all vices, have somewhat of their ill- 
natured humour in them, and agree in nothing 
but in this, That each of them both disagree 
with each other, which makes the practice of 
them both tedious and disagreeable ; for all of 
them, consisting the one in excess, the other in 
defect, they cannot but disagree : excess and de- 
fect being in themselves most contrary : thus 
prodigality opposes avarice, cowardliness cou- 
rage, and fondness hatred ; and as virtuous per- 
sons have a kindness for one another, because 
the object of their love requires, as well as ad- 
mits rivals; so vice, endeavouring to engross 
what it pursues, makes rivals altogether unsup- 
portable. Ambition inciteth each of its depen- 
ders to be chief; and yet allows only one of these 
many to enjoy what it makes all of them desire. 
Thus avarice's task is to impropriate the posses- 
sion of what was created, and is necessary to be 
distributed amongst many thousands ; and envy 



A MORAL PARADOX. 97 

will not only have its master to be full of ap- 
plause, but will likewise starve the desires and 
merits of others ; judging that itself cannot be 
happy if others be. Vice then must be less easy 
than virtue, because it hath more enemies than 
virtue; and because the virtues are more har- 
monious amongst themselves than vices are. 

Vices not only makes enemies to themselves, 
but by a civil war (as a just judgment upon 
them) they destroy one another ; providence in- 
tending thereby to hinder the growth of what, 
though it prosper not well, yet is already too 
noxious to mankind : and upon the same prin- 
ciple of kindness to what bears his image, God 
Almighty, and his providence, do design the 
unsuccessfulness of vice, as being obstructive of 
his glory, as well as destructive to his creatures, 
being equally thereto engaged by a love to his 
honour and service, and by a hatred as well to 
those who commit vice, as to the vice which is 
committed. Thus God confounded those tongues 
which had spoke so much blasphemy against him, 
whilst they were endeavouring to raise a tower 
as high as their sins. And when David inten- 
ded to spill Nabal's blood, God is said to have 
stopped him from being an unjust executioner, 
whom He intended to make a most just judge. 
And since Balaam's ass opened its mouth to 
N 



98 A MORAL PARADOX. 

speak this truth, they must be more stupid than 
asses who will not believe it. The law likewise 
by its punishments, contributes all its endeavours 
to crush vice, and to arrest its success, forbidding 
by its edicts, any person to assist it ; and mak- 
ing not only assistance, but counsel ; not only 
counsel, but connivance; not only connivance, 
but concealment of it, to be in most cases so 
criminal, that all the honours which vice pro- 
miseth, or the treasures it gives, cannot be able 
to redeem those who are found to have slighted 
this prohibition. Must it not then be difficult 
to be vicious, where assistants and counsellors 
are so overawed, and the intenders so terrified, 
that few will engage as instruments ? And these 
who do, are so disordered by fear, that vicious 
projectors are as little to expect success, as vir- 
tuous persons are to wish it for them. And to 
evidence how much opposition the law intends 
for vice, it not only punishes vice with what it 
presently inflicts, but it presumes it still guilty 
for the future : semel malus semper prcesumitur 
malus ; and upon that presumption many vicious 
persons have suffered for that whereof they were 
otherwise innocent. Though rebellion hath pro- 
mising charms, to allure the idolaters of ambi- 
tion and fame; yet the law doth so far stand 
against it, that few will concur with the contriv- 



A MORAL PARADOX. 99 

ers, except such fools as have not the wit to 
promote it, or some desperate persons, with 
whom few will join, because they are known to 
be discontent: and though revenge relishes 
blood with a pleasing taste, yet the severity of 
excellent law cools much of that inhuman heat, 
and lessens the pleasure by sharpening the 
punishment. Vice then must be uneasy, seeing 
the law opposes it, and renders its commission 
dangerous, as well as odious. 

Men likewise join with God and the law in a 
confederacy against vice; and though they too 
oft approve it in the warmness and disorder of 
their passions, yet in their professions and con- 
ventions they laugh at it, and inveigh against it; 
and though the pressure of a present temptation 
overcome them so far as to commit what they 
disallow ; yet they do but infrequently, and with 
so many checks from within, as that its commis- 
sion cannot be thought easy: consider, how 
amongst men, we hate even these vices in others 
which we are guilty of ourselves ; and how we 
even hate these vices in others, by which we our- 
selves reap no small advantage. Alexander glo- 
ried to destroy that base person who had mur- 
dered his greatest enemy, Darius; and David 
is commended, for having caused to kill him, 
who but said, That he had killed Saul. Who 



100 A MORAL PARADOX. 

will employ one that is perfidious? And so 
uneasy is vice, that much pains and discourse 
will not persuade us to believe one who uses to 
tell a lie; whilst we will soon believe what is 
really a lie, from one that uses not to abuse our 
trust : few judges are so precisely just, as not to 
think that they favour a virtuous person ; good 
men do likewise reward such as own an interest 
so allowable ; and wicked men own such as are 
virtuous, out of design thereby to expiate their 
former vice, and to persuade the world that they 
are not really vicious, though they be esteemed 
so : so that, seeing reward as well as inclination, 
and just men as well as unjust, advance virtue 
and oppose vice, vice cannot but be more uneasy 
than virtue, which is all to be proved. 

I am, from reflecting upon the progress and 
growth of vice, convinced very much of its un- 
easiness. If we look upon rebellion, revenge, or 
adulteries, we find them hatched in corners, as 
remote from commerce as those vices are them- 
selves from virtue ; and as black as the guilt of 
their contrivers ; and almost as terrifying as the 
worst of prisons are to such who are but in any 
measure virtuous. None of the contrivers dares 
trust his colleague ; and which is yet worse, none 
of them hath courage enough to reflect upon 
what he is to do ; he must be too bad to be sue* 



A MORAL PAKADOX. 101 

cessful, who is so desperately wicked as not to 
tremble at the wickedness he projects ; and these 
blessings which adorn the face, when they are 
the motions of modesty, become stains and ble- 
mishes, when they are sent there by fear, or a 
troubled conscience : and it is very pretty to ob- 
serve, with how much art and pains such as are 
guilty of vice, endeavour to shun all discourses 
that can renew to them the least reflection upon 
their former failings ; and how they must often- 
times disoblige their own envy and malice, in not 
daring to vent or reproach others with that guilt 
which might be easily retorted ; and thus vicious 
men have as many masters as their vices have 
witnesses : and though they are bold enough to 
commit vice, yet they oftentimes want the cou- 
rage to own it ; and servants, if conscious to 
these crimes, become thereby necessary to their 
masters ; nor do wicked and vicious persons fear 
only such as do, but (which is more extensive) 
such as may know their vices, and tremble at its 
memory, as if the sun or moon would divulge 
their secrets; and, by accident, they have oft 
confessed crimes upon mistake, and have made 
apologies for that whereof they were not ac- 
cused ; which hath made the confessors to be 
laughed at for their error, as well as hated for 
their crimes. 



J 02 A MORAL PARADOX. 

Another argument to enforce, That Virtue is 
more easy than Vice, is : That seeing nature is 
the spring of all operations, certainly that must 
be most easy, which is most natural ; and when 
we would express any thing to be easy to a per- 
son or nation, we say, it is natural to them ; and 
miracles are uneasy and difficult, because they 
run the counter-track of nature, being either 
above, against, or beside its assistance : but so 
it is, that virtue is a more natural operation than 
vice; both because it less infests nature than 
vice does, — and because nature discovers more 
of a bent to act viciously than virtuously; which 
are the only two senses in which any thing is 
said to be natural. 

That virtue, of these two, prejudges nature 
least, is clear from this : that sobriety cherisheth 
it, when it is run down by intemperance; murder 
kills it; gluttony chokes it; and jealousy keeps 
it not alive but to torment it: and generally, 
whenever nature is distressed it flies to virtue — 
either for protection, as to courage, justice, and 
clemency; or for recovery, as to temperance, 
industry, and chastity : few gray hairs owe their 
whiteness, except to that innocence whose livery 
it is ; rapine, oppression, and these other vices, 
heightening their insolence against man, to that 
point, that he must serve them in being his own 



A MORAL PARADOX. 103 

cut-throat; to be commended for nothing else, 
save that they rid the world of such who came 
only into it to deface that glorious fabric, where- 
of the Almighty resented so the pleasure of hav- 
ing created it, that he appointed a day of each 
seven to celebrate its festivals. Art not some 
sins said to be Sins against our own bodies ? Not 
because all are not so in some measure ; but be- 
cause some are so in so eminent a measure, that 
the Apostle, who knew much of all men's incli- 
nations, thought that their being so much such, 
was enough to restrain such persons from com- 
mitting them, as were yet so wicked as not to 
obey a Saviour who died for them. And why is 
it that laws are so severe against vice, but be- 
cause it destroys and corrupts the members of 
the commonwealth ? I have oft, notwithstanding 
the precepts of Stoicism, which forbids me to be 
so effeminate as to pity any thing ; and notwith- 
standing the principles of justice, which forbids 
me to pity persons, that I have no more remem- 
bered even the wrongs that they done me: to 
see the pox wear out a face which had been so 
oft fairded, and the gout fetter feet, that, as the 
Psalmist says, were swift to do ill, are but too or- 
dinary encounters to excite compassion : but to 
see the wheel fattened with the marrow of tor- 
tured miscreants; and the rack pull to pieces 



104 A MORAL PARADOX. 

their receptacles of vice ; are great instances how 
great an enemy vice is to nature ; under whose 
ill conduct, and for whose errors, it suffers tor- 
ments which are much sooner felt than expressed. 
Since, then, Nature is opposed by vice, it can- 
not be itself so unwise, in the meanest of these 
many degrees which we ascribe to many crea- 
tures whom it makes wise, if it disposed not 
mankind to entertain an aversion for vice, which 
is so much its enemy. Shall the sheep, the silli- 
est of all animals, or the earth, the dullest of all 
the elements, flee from its oppressors ? And shall 
Nature, which should be wiser than these, be- 
cause it bestows these inclinations upon them 
which makes them pass for wise, be so impru- 
dent, as not to mould men so as to incline them 
to hate vice, which so much hurts it? Is there 
any vice committed, to which we may not find 
another impulsive cause than Nature ? And are 
not most vices either committed by custom, by 
being mistaken for good, by interest, or inadver- 
tence, as shall be showed in the close of this dis- 
course ? And seeing Nature deigns to do nothing 
in vain, it is not imaginable that it should prompt 
us to vice, wherein nothing but vanity can be 
expected, or from which nothing else can be 
reaped. These who are so injurious to Nature, 
(because it appears Nature hath been less libe- 



A MORAL PARADOX. 105 

ral to them of understanding than to others,) as 
to fasten this reproach upon it of inclining men 
to vice, do contradict themselves when they say, 
That nature is satisfied with little, and desires 
nothing that is superfluous : whereas all these 
vices which consist in excess, do stretch them- 
selves to superfluity; whilst, upon the other 
side, these vices which consist in defect, are yet 
as unnatural ; because in these the committers 
deny themselves what is necessary for them, and 
so are most unnatural: nature desiring to see 
every thing accomplished in its just proportions, 
and satisfied in its just desires. 

All vices have their own peculiar diseases, to 
which they inevitably lead ; envy brings men to 
leanness, as if it were fed with its master's flesh, 
as well as with its enemies' failings; lust, the 
pox and consumptions; drunkenness, catarrhs 
and gouts; and rage, fevers and phrenzies; 
which is a demonstration of their uneasiness and 
incommodiousness : and I might almost say, that 
those vices are like frogs, lice, and other despi- 
cable and terrible insects, generated and knead- 
ed out of excrementitious humours. Lust is 
occasioned by the superfluity and heat of the 
blood ; drunkenness by a dryness of the vessels; 
and rage by the corruption and exuberancy of 
choler. Consider how much the frowns of anger 



106 A MORAL PARADOX. 

disfigure the sweetest face — how much rage dis- 
composes our discourse ; and by these and its 
other postures, ye will find vice an enemy to 
nature : so that in all these, nature labours un- 
der some distemper, and is distressed in its ope- 
ration ; and acts them not out of choice, but as 
sick men rise to hunt for what their physicians 
deny them. And for all this it follows, that vice 
is neither natural in its productions, nor in its 
tendencies ; not being designed by nature in the 
one, nor designing to preserve nature in the 
other. 

1 confess there is a rank of virtues, which are 
supernatural, — such as faith, hope, and repent- 
ance ; but either there could be no contradis- 
tinction of these from such as I treat of, or else 
these of which I here speak must be natural. 
To deny ourselves, if we will follow Christ; 
and, what flesh and blood did not teach Peter, 
to emit that noble confession of Christ's being 
the Son of the Eternal God, proves that some 
spiritual truths are above the reach of reason ; 
yet with relation to those other moral virtues, 
that same inspired volume assures us, That the 
Gentiles, who have no law, do by nature the things 
contained in the law, are a law nnto themselves ; 
which show the work of the law written in their 
hearts ; their conscience also bearing witness, and 



A MORAL PARADOX. 107 

their thoughts in the mean time accusing, or else 
excusing one another : and elsewhere the wicked 
are said to be without natural affection. Are not 
all sins, even in the dialect of philosophers and 
lawgivers, as well as in the language of Canaan, 
termed unnatural ? What is parricide, ingrati- 
tude, oppression, lying, &c. but the subversion 
of these laws, whereof our own hearts are the 
tables ? Doth not nature, by giving us tongues 
to express our thoughts, teach us, that to disguise 
our thoughts, or contradict them, is to be un- 
natural ? And seeing the not-acknowledgment 
of favours, obstructs the future relief of our ne- 
cessities, it must be as unnatural to be ingrate, 
as it is natural to provide supplies for our crav- 
ing wants. 

I will not fully exhaust the miseries that wait 
upon vice, by telling you, that no man who is 
really vicious, sinneth without reluctancy in the 
commission ; but I must likewise tell you, That 
though all the preceding disadvantages were 
salved, yet the natural horror which results from 
the commission of vice, is great enough to ren- 
der it a miracle that any man should be vicious. 
Conscience can condemn us without witnesses, 
though we bribe off all witnesses from without ; 
or though by sophistry and art, we render their 
depositions unsuccessful : and though remissions 



108 A MORAL PARADOX. 

can secure us against all external punishments, 
yet the arm of that executioner cannot be stopped. 
And if ye consider how men become thereby in- 
consolable, by the attendance of friends, and the 
advantage of all exterior pleasures, ye cannot but 
conclude that vice is to be pitied, as well as shun- 
ned ; and that this alone makes it more uneasy 
than virtue, whereby the greatest of misfortunes 
are sweetened ; and outward torments, by having 
their prospects turned upon future praise and 
rewards, rendered pleasures to such as suffer 
them; and are looked upon as ornaments, by 
such as see them inflicted, and draw praises 
from succeeding ages. 

Hie raurus ahenus esto 

Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa ; 

was the determination of a pagan, who could de- 
rive no happiness from the divine promises, up- 
on which we are obliged to rely for rewards; 
which though they be too great to be understood 
by the sons of men, yet are not so great, but 
that they may be expected by us, when we shall 
be adopted to be the sons of that God, whose 
power to bestow can be equalled by nothing, 
but by His desire to gratify. After success hath 
crowned vicious designs, yet vice meets with 
this uneasiness of remorse, wherein the souls of 



A MORAL PARADOX. 109 

men are made to forget the pleasure of success, 
and are punished for having been successful : 
and these will either not remember their success, 
in which case they want all pleasure, or, if they 
think upon it, that thought will lead them back 
to consider the guilt and baseness to which they 
owe it, which will vex and fret them. Virtue 
afflicts at most but the body, and in these pains 
philosophy comforts us; but vice afflicts our 
souls, and the soul being more sensible than the 
body, (seeing the body owes its sensibleness to 
it,) certainly the torments of vice must be the 
greatest. And this seems the reason why our 
Saviour, in describing the torments of hell, 
placeth the worm that never dies, before the fire 
that never goeth out : and that the rebukes of a 
natural conscience, are of all torments the most 
unsupportable, appears from this, — that albeit 
death being the most formidable of all torments, 
(men suffering tortures, physic, contumelies, 
poverty, and the sharpest of afflictions, to shun 
its encounter,) yet men, in exchange of these, 
will not only welcome death, but will assume it 
to themselves, adding the guilt and infamy of 
self-murder, the confiscation of an estate, and 
the infamous wants of burial, to the horrors of 
an ordinary death ; and all this, to shift the pre- 
sent gnawings of a conscience. The horrors 



■110 A MORAL PARADOX. 

likewise of a guilty conscience do in this appear 
most disquieting, — that those who have their 
conscience so burdened, do acknowledge, that 
after confession they find themselves as much 
eased, as a sick stomach is relieved by vomiting 
up these humours, whose disquietness makes 
such as suffered them rather sick persons than 
patients ; whereas, whatever be the present 
troubles which arise from virtue, yet, if they 
continue not, they are tolerable, and if they con- 
tinue, custom and the assistance of philosophy 
will lessen their weight ; and at best, the pain 
is but temporary, because the cause from which 
they descend is but momentary : if they be not 
sharp and violent, they are sufFerable ; and if 
they be violent, they cannot last, or at least, the 
patient cannot last long to endure them : where- 
as these reflections that disquiet us in vice, aris- 
ing from the soul itself, cannot perish whilst 
that hath any being. And so the vicious soul 
must measure its grief by the length of eternity, 
though vice did let out its joys but the length 
of a moment, and did not fill even the narrow 
dimensions of that moment with sincere joy; 
the knowledge that these were to be short-lived, 
and the fear of succeeding torment, possessing 
much of that little room. 

The first objection, whose difficulty deserves 



A MORAL PARADOX. Ill 

an answer, is, that virtue obliges us to oppose 
pleasures, and to accustom ourselves with such 
rigours, seriousness and patience, as cannot but 
render its practice uneasy : and if the reader's 
own ingenuity supply not what may be rejoined 
to this, it will require a discourse, that shall 
have no other design besides its satisfaction ; 
and really to show by what means every man 
may make himself easily happy, and how to 
soften the appearing rigours of philosophy, is a 
design, which, if I thought it not worthy of a 
sweeter pen, should be assisted by mine; and 
for which I have in my current experience, ga- 
thered together some loose reflections and ob- 
servations, of whose cogency I have this assu- 
rance — that they have often moderated the wild- 
est of my own straying inclinations — and so 
might pretend to a more prevailing ascendant 
over such, whose reason and temperament make 
them much more reclaimable: but at present 
my answer is, That philosophy enjoins not the 
crossing of our own inclinations, but in order to 
their accomplishment ; and it proposes pleasure 
as its end, as well as vice ; though, for its more 
fixed establishment, it sometimes commands 
what seems rude to such as are strangers to its 
intentions in them. Thus temperance resolves 
to heighten the pleasures of enjoyment, by de- 



112 A MORAL PARADOX. 

fending us against all the insults of excess and 
oppressive loathing; and when it lessens our 
pleasures, it intends not to abridge them, but to 
make them fit and convenient for us ; even as 
soldiers, who, though they propose not wounds 
and starvings, yet, if without these they cannot 
reach those laurels to which they climb, they will 
not so far disparage their own hopes, as to think 
they should fix them upon any thing whose pur- 
chase deserves not the suffering of these. Phy- 
sic cannot be called a cruel employment, be- 
cause to preserve what is sound it will cut off 
what is tainted ; and these vicious persons, whose 
laziness forms this doubt, do answer it, when 
they endure the sickness of drunkenness, the 
toiling of avarice, the attendance of rising vani- 
ty, and the watchings of anxiety, — and all this 
to satisfy inclinations, whose shortness allows 
little pleasures, and whose prospect excludes all 
future hopes. Such as disquiet themselves by 
anxiety (which is a frequently repeated self- 
murder), are more tortured than they could be 
by the want of what they pant after ; that longed- 
for possession of a neighbour's estate, or of a 
public employment, makes deeper impressions 
of grief by their absence than their enjoyment 
can repair : and a philosopher will sooner con- 
vince himself of their not being the necessary 



A MORAL PARADOX. 113 

integrants of our happiness, than the miser will, 
by all assiduousness, gain them. 

There are but three instances of time, and in 
each of these vicious persons are much troubled ; 
the prospect of usual insuccessfulness, difficul- 
ties or inconveniences, do torment before the 
commission ; horror, trembling and reluctancy, 
do terrify in the act ; and conscience succeeds 
to these after commission, as the last, but not 
the least of these unruly torments. And as to 
the pleasures of vice, it can have none in any 
of these parcels of time, beside the present ; 
which present is by many philosophers scarce 
allowed the name of time, and is at best so swift, 
that its pleasures must be too transient to be 
possessed. I confess that revenge is the most 
enticing of all vices ; insomuch, that a wicked 
Italian said, That God Almighty had reserved 
it to himself, because it was too noble and satis- 
fying a prerogative to be bestowed upon mortals : 
yet it discharges at once pleasures with its 
fury ; and, like a bee, languishes after it hath 
spent its sting ; and when it is once acted, which 
is oft in one moment, it ceaseth from that mo- 
ment to be a pleasure ; and such as were tickled 
once with it, are afraid of its remembrance, and 
think worse of it than they did formerly of the 
affront, to expiate which it was undertaken. 



114 A MORAL PARADOX. 

Thirty pieces of silver might have had some 
lechery in them, at Judas's first touch ; but they 
behoved to have a very unresembling effect, when 
he took no longer pleasure in them, than to have 
come the next week to offer them back ; and be- 
cause they were refused, to rid himself of his life 
and them together. 

The pains of vice may be concluded greater 
than these of virtue, from this ; That virtuous 
persons are in their sufferings assisted by all the 
world : vicious persons doing so to expiate their 
own crimes; and virtuous persons doing the 
same, to reward the virtue they adore ; and if 
these endeavours prove unsuccessful, every man 
by bearing a share in their grief, do all they can 
to lessen it ; but vicious persons have their suf- 
ferings augmented by the disdain, and just op- 
probries thrown upon them by such as were wit- 
nesses to their vices ; and such as had any incli- 
nation for them, dare not appear to be their 
well-wishers, lest they be reputed complices of 
their crimes. 

I need not fear so much weakness in this my 
theme, as to bring up a thousand of these instances 
to its aid, that lie every where obvious to the least 
curious observation : what is more laborious than 
pride ? wherein by robbing from others what is 
due to them, the acquirers are still obliged to 



A MORAL PARADOX. 11.5 

defend their new conquests with more vigilance 
than virtue needs ? The proud man must be 
greater than all others, and so must toil more 
than they all, his task being greater than all 
their' s jointly. And the jealous man must never 
be satisfied, till he knows not only what is truth, 
but what he fears to be so ; being most unhappy 
in this, that if he get assurance of what he sus- 
pects, then he is made really miserable ; or if he 
attain not to that assurance, he must still toil for 
it, and make himself miserable by his pains, till 
he become really so, by being informed of what 
at one instant he wishes to be false, and endea- 
vours to make true. Revenge is most painful, 
both in persuading us that these are affronts, 
which of their own nature are no affronts ; and 
then in bringing on us much more hazard than 
their satisfaction can repay. For one word spoke 
to us, which (it may be) the speaker intended as 
no injury, how many have, by murdering the 
speaker, or some rash attempt, deprived them- 
selves of the privilege of seeing their friends 
without horror; or of coming abroad without 
imminent danger; skulking in dens like thieves; 
imprisoned for fear of prison ; and dying daily 
to shun the death they fear ? Whereas Socrates, 
by laughing at him who spat in his face, had then 
the pleasure to see himself at present satisfied; and 



116 A MORAL PARADOX. 

did foresee the hopes of future praises. Guilti- 
ness must search out corners ; it must at all rates 
secure favourites; it must shun to meet with 
such as are conscious to its guilt ; and whenever 
two men speak privately in presence of such as 
are vicious, they persuade themselves that some- 
what is there spoke to their disadvantage ; and 
like one who labours of a sore, they must still 
be careful that their wound be not touched. 

To conclude then this period, consider, that 
every thing that is uneasy must be unpleasant ; 
and that vice is more uneasy than virtue, appears 
from the whole foregoing discourse. 

I hope the preceding discourse hath cleared 
off all these doubts, that can oppose this well- 
founded truth ; leaving only this objection here 
to be answered: if vice be less easy, and less 
natural than virtue, why do the greater part of 
mankind range themselves to its side, leaving 
virtue as few followers, as it professes to desire 
admirers? In answer whereto, I confess that 
this objection proves men to be mad, but not 
vice to be easy; even as when we see men throw 
away their clothes, run the fields over, and ex- 
pose themselves to storms, leaving their conve- 
nient homes and kind family, we conclude such 
as do so to be mad ; but are not induced to be- 
lieve that what they do is easy. And certainly 



A MOltAL PARADOX. 117 

vice is a madness, as may appear convincingly 
from this, that when we see others run to these 
excesses, (which we thought gallantry in our- 
selves, when we were acting the like,) we ask 
them seriously, What, are ye mad ? And Ha- 
zael, when the cruelty he was to (and did) com- 
mit, was foretold him by the prophet, did with 
admiration ask, What ? am I a dog that I should 
do these things ? And the prodigal, when he 
freed himself from these vicious rovings, is said 
to have come to himself; by which word madness 
is usually expressed. Men are said to be mad 
when they offer violence to their bodies ; and it 
is a more advanced degree of madness, to offer 
violence to our souls ; which we then do (besides 
the ruining of our bodies) when we are vicious. 
And to such as prefer their bodies to their souls, 
I recommend the survey of such bodies as have 
wasted themselves in stews and taverns, or have 
left limbs upon the field where they last quar- 
relled after cups, for vanity or mistresses. The 
second answer is, That men mistake oftimes vice 
for virtue ; and are enticed to it by an error in 
their judgments, rather than any depravedness 
in their affections. Thus drunkenness recom- 
mends itself to us, under the notion of kindness; 
and prodigality under that of liberality : com- 
placency likewise is the great pimp of much 



116 A MORAL PARADOX. 

viciousness to well-disposed persons, and many 
are by it enticed to err, to gratify a mistake in 
their friendship; for they are persuaded, that 
friendship and kindness are so innocent and 
sweet qualities, that they cannot command, what 
are not just as themselves. 

Custom, also, as it is a second nature, so it is 
a step-mother to virtue,* and whilst we endea- 
vour to shun the vice of being vain and singular^ 
we slip into these vices, which are too familiar to 
be formidable ; and which we would not have 
committed, if the mode and fashion had not de- 
termined us thereto, against our first and pure 
inclinations. Thus the Germans believe drink- 
ing to be kindness ; and the Italian is, by the 
custom of his country, induced not to tremble, 
but to love sodomy. We have interest likewise 
to blame for much of that wickedness which we 
falsely charge upon nature ; for this bribes us to 
oppose what naturally we would follow: but 
above all, want of consideration is the frequent 
occasion of many of these disorders ; so that vir- 
tue is not postponed by choice, but by negli- 
gence ; neither would it be more difficult for us 
to be virtuous in many of our actions, than it 
would be for us to consider what we are about to 
do. And I may seal up this period with the 
blunt complaint made by a poor woman, who 



A MORAL PARADOX. 119 

after her affection and interest had forced from 
her many passionate regrets against her son's 
debordings, concluded thus : — Alas ! any son 
will never recover, for he cannot think. There- 
fore, I must conclude, that seeing it is easy to 
think, it must be likewise easy to be virtuous. 

It is indeed hard for one who is drunk to stand 
upright, or for one who hath his eyes covered 
with mire to see clearly ; and yet standing up- 
right, or seeing clearly, are not in themselves 
difficult tasks : just so virtue is easy in itself, 
though our pre-engagement to the contrary ha- 
bit, rather than to the vice itself, renders its 
operation somewhat uneasy ; whereas, if we had 
once imbrued our souls with a habit of virtue, 
its exercise would be far easier to us than that of 
its contrary ; for it would be assisted by reason, 
nature, reward, and applause ; all which oppose 
the other. He who becomes temperate, finds 
his temperance much less troublesome, than the 
most habitual drunkard can his excess, who can 
never render it so familiar, but that he will be 
constrained to make faces, when he quaffs off 
a tedious health; and will at sometimes find 
either his quarrels, the betraying his friend's se- 
cret, or his crudities to importune him. No liar 
has so much accustomed himself to that trade, 
but he will discover himself sometimes in his 



120 A MORAL PARADOX. 

blushes, and will be oft distressed to shape out 
covers for his falseness ; whereas he who is free 
from the bondage of that habit, will always find 
it so easy, that he will never hear a lie, without 
admiring with what confidence it could have been 
forged. 

Whereas to know the easiness of virtue, we 
need only this reflection, That every vicious 
person thinks it easier to conquer the vice he 
sees in another. He who whores, admires the 
uneasiness and unpleasantness of drinking ; and 
the drunkard laughs at the fruitless toil of am- 
bition ; which shows that vice is an uneasy con- 
quest, seeing the meanest persons can subdue it. 

Though truth and newness do of all other mo- 
tives, court us soonest to complacency, and that 
my present theme may pretend to both, yet so 
studious am I of success, where I have a tender- 
ness for the subject for which I contend, that for 
further conviction of its enemies, I must recom- 
mend to them to go to the courts of monarchs, 
and there learn the uneasiness and unpleasant- 
ness of vice, from its splitting those in opposi- 
tions and factions, which afford the reasonable 
lookers-on as disagreeable a prospect, as that of 
a shipwrecked vessel. And when faction has 
once dismembered a society, is it not strange to 
see what pains and anxiety must be showed by 



A MORAL PARADOX. 121 

both opposites, to discover and ruin each others 
projects ? Other men toil only to make them- 
selves happy ; but those must labour likewise to 
keep their opposites from being so ; they must 
seek applause for themselves, and must stop it 
from their enemies ; they must shun all places 
where these are entertained, and all occasions 
which may bring them to meet, though inclina- 
tion or curiosity do extremely bend them to go 
thither; they must oppose the friends of their ene- 
mies, though they be desirous, and obliged upon 
many other scores to do them good offices ; they 
grow pale at their appearances, and are disorder- 
ed at what praise is given those, though bestowed 
upon them for promoting that public good, 
wherein the contemners share for much of their 
own safety ; and it is most ordinary to hear such 
factious zealots swear, that they would choose 
rather to be destroyed by a public enemy, than 
preserved by a rival; from all which it is but 
too clear, that all vicious persons are slaves, 
which though the uneasiest of states, yet to shun 
a loss of supposed liberty, most men refuse to 
be virtuous. If we go to physicians, we will 
find their shambles hung round with the trophies 
of vice. For temperance, chastity, or the other 
virtues send few thither : but wantonness repays 
there its own moment's pleasure with a year's 



122 A MORAL PARADOX. 

cure; and makes them afraid to see that disfigured 
face, for whose representation they once doted 
upon their flattering mirrors. There lie such 
prisoners, as the drunken gout hath fettered; 
and there lie louring such as gluttony hath op- 
pressed. Let us go to prisons and scaffolds, 
and there we will see such furnished out with 
the envoys of injustice, malice, revenge, and 
murders. Let us go to divines, and they will 
tell us of the horrid exclamations of such, as 
have upon their death-bed seen mustered before 
them, those sins, which how soon they had their 
vizards of sensuality and lust pulled off, did ap- 
pear in figures monstrous enough to terrify a 
soul which took leisure to consider them. 

Hi sunt qui trepidant, et ad omnia fulgura paUent. Juv. 

And though the consciences of soldiers have 
oftimes their ears so deafened with warlike 
sounds, or welcome applauses, that they cannot 
hear ; and their eyes so covered with their ene- 
mies' gore, that they cannot see these terrifying 
shapes of inward revenge; yet, if we believe 
Lucan, neither could the wrongs done to Caesar 
so far legitimate his fury; nor the present joy, or 
future danger, so far divert him from reflecting 
upon his by-past actions ; nor could the want of 
Christianity (which enlivens extremely these ter- 



A MORAL PARADOX. 123 

rors beyond the Creed of a Roman, who believed 
that gallantry was devotion) so far favour his 
cruelty, — but that he and his soldiers were, the 
night of Pharsalia's battle, thus disturbed. Z,w- 
can, book 7. 

But furious dreams disturb their restless rest, 

Pharsalia's Jight remains in every breast ; 

Their horrid guilt still works ; the battle stands 

In all their thoughts, they brandish empty hands 

Without their swords : you would have thought the field 

Had groaned, and that the guilty earth did yield 

Exhaled spirits, that in the air did move, 

And Stygian fears possest the night above ; 

A sad revenge on them their conquest takes ; 

Their sleeps present the Furies hissing snakes, 

And brands ; their countrymen's sad ghosts appear : 

To each the image of his proper fear. 

One sees an old man's visage, one a young; 

Another's tortured all the evening long 

With his slain brother's spirit; their father'' s sight 

Daunts some ; but Caesar's soitl all ghosts affright. 

But that I may rest your thoughts from the 
noise and horror of these objects, let me lead 
them into a philosopher's cell or house; (for 
virtue is not like vice, confined to places,) and 
there ye will see measures taken, by no less no- 
ble nor less erring pattern, than Nature. His 
furniture is not the offspring of the last fashion ; 
and so he must not be at the toil, and keep spies 
for informing him, when the succeeding mode 



124 A MOKAL PARADOX. 

must cause these be pulled down ; and needs not 
be troubled, to fill the room yearly of that con- 
temned stuff' he but lately admired. He is not 
troubled that another's candlesticks are of a later 
mould ; nor vext, that he cannot muster so many 
cabins or knacks as he does. He spends no 
such idle times as is requisite for making great 
entertainments ; wherein nature is oppressed to 
please fancy ; and must be, by the next day's 
physic, tortured to cure its errors : his soul lod- 
ges cleanly; neither clouded with the vapours, 
nor cloyed with the crudities of his table : he 
applies every thing to its natural use ; and so 
uses meat and drink, not to express kindness, 
(friendship doing that office much better) but to 
refresh, and not to occasion his weakness. His 
dreams are neither disturbed by the horrid re- 
presentation of his last day's crimes, nor by the 
too deep impressions of the next day's designs, 
but are calm as the breast they refresh, and 
pleasant as the rest they bring. His eyes suffer 
no such eclipse in these, as the eyes of vicious 
men do, when they are darkened with drunken- 
ness, or excessive sorrow ; for all his darknesses 
succeed as seasonably to his recreations, as the 
day is followed in by the night. In his clothes, 
he uses not such as require two or three hours 
to their laborious dressing; or which overawe 



A MORAL PARADOX. 125 

the wearer so, that he must shun to go abroad 
to all places, or at all occasions, lest he offend 
their lustre ; but he provides himself with such 
as are most easy for use ; and fears not to stain 
these, if he keep his soul unspotted: he considers 
his body and organs as the easement and servants 
of that reasonable soul he so much loves, and 
therefore he eases them, not upon design to 
please them, but to refresh them, that the soul 
may be thereby better served; and if at any time he 
deny these their satisfaction, he designs not there- 
by to torture them: for gratitude obliges him to re- 
pay better their services ; (and a man should not 
be cruel even to his beast;) but he does so, lest 
they exceed these measures, whose extent virtue 
knows better to mark out than they ; or else he 
finds that, during the time he ministers to these 
appetites, he may be more advantageously em- 
ployed in enjoying the pure and spiritual plea- 
sures of philosophy. But leaving this outer- 
court, let us step into a philosopher's breast, (a 
region as serene as the heaven whence it came,) 
and there view how sweet virtue inspires gentle 
thoughts, whose storms raise not wrinkles, like 
billows in our face, and blow not away our dis- 
obliged friends. Here, no mutinous passion re- 
bels with success ; and these petty insurrections 
of flesh and blood, serve only to magnify the 



126 A MORAL PARADOX. 

strength of reason in their defeat. Here, all his 
desires are so satisfied with virtue as their reward, 
that they need, nor do not run abroad, begging 
pleasures from every unknown object; and there- 
fore it is, that, not placing his happiness upon 
what is subject to the empire of fate, capricious 
fortune cannot make him miserable; for it can 
resume nothing but what it hath given : and 
therefore, seeing it hath not bestowed virtue and 
tranquillity, it cannot call it away, and whilst 
that remains all other losses are inconsiderable. 
And as few men are grieved to see what is not 
their own destroyed, so the virtuous philosopher, 
having always considered what is without him as 
belonging to fortune, and not to him; he sees 
those burned or robbed with a disinterested in- 
differency: and when all others are alarmed with 
the fears of ensuing wars and invasions, he stands 
as fixed (though not as hard) as a rock, and suf- 
fers all the foaming waves of fate and malice, to 
spend their spite and froth at his feet. Virtue, 
and the remembrance of what he hath done, and 
the hopes that he will still act virtuously, are all 
his treasures ; and these are not capable of being 
pillaged; these are his inseparable companions, 
and, therefore, he can never want a divertising 
conversation ; and seeing he is a citizen of the 
world, all places are his country; and he is always 



A MORAL PARADOX. 127 

at home, and so can never be banished ; and see- 
ing he can still exercise his reason equally in all 
places, he is never (like vicious persons) vexed 
that he must stay in one place, and cannot reach 
another ; like a sick man, whose diseases make 
him always tumble through all the corners of his 
bed. He is never surprised, because he forecasts 
always the worst ; and as this arms him against 
discontents, so if a milder event disappoint his 
apprehensions, this heightens his pleasure. He 
lives without all design, except that one of obey- 
ing his reason ; therefore it is that he can never 
be miserable, seeing such are only so, who are 
crossed in their designs ; and thence it is, that 
when he hears that his actions displease the 
world, he is not troubled, seeing he designed not 
to please them; and if he see others carry weal- 
thy pretences to which he had a title, he is little 
troubled, seeing he designed not to be rich. 
The frowns or favours of grandees alter him not, 
seeing he neither fears the one, nor expects pro- 
motion from the other. He desires little, and 
so is easily happy ; seeing these are without con- 
troversy happy, who enjoy all they desire ; and 
that man puts himself in great debt, who widens 
his expectations by his desires : thus, he who 
designs to buy a neighbouring field, must straiten 
himself to lay up what will reach its price, as 



128 A MORAL PARADOX. 

much as if he were debtor in the like sum ; and 
desire leaves still an emptiness which must be 
filled. He finds not his breast invaded (like 
such as are vicious) by contrary passions : envy 
sometimes persuading, that others are more de- 
serving ; and vanity assuring, that none deserves 
so much. His passions do not interest him with 
extreme concern in any thing; and seeing he 
loves nothing too well, he grieves at the loss of 
nothing too much ; joy and grief being like the 
contrary motions of a swing or pendula, which 
must move as far (exactly) to the one side, as it 
run formerly to the other. He looks upon all 
mankind as sprung from one common stock with 
himself; and these are as glad to hear of other 
men's happiness, as others are to hear of their 
kindred and relations' promotion. If he be 
advanced to be a statesman, whilst he con- 
tinues so, he designs more to discharge well 
his present trust than to court a higher, which 
double task burdens such as are vicious; and, 
having no private design, if the public which 
he serves find out one fitter for the employ- 
ment, he is well satisfied, for his design of 
serving the public is thereby more promoted : 
and if he be preferred to be a judge, he looks 
only to the law as his square, and is not dis- 
tracted betwixt the desires to be just, to please 



A MORAL PARADOX. 129 

his friends, to gratify his dependers, and to ad- 
vance his private gain. The philosopher is not 
raised by his greatness above, nor depressed by 
his misfortunes below, his natural level; for, 
when he is in his grandeur, he considers that 
men come to him but as they go to fountains ; 
not to admire its streams (though clear as crys- 
tal), but to fill their own pitchers ; and there- 
fore he is neither at much pains to preserve 
that state, nor to heighten men's esteem of it, 
but considers his own power as he doth a river, 
whose streams are always passing, and are then 
only pleasant when they glide calmly within 
their banks. Injuries do not reach him, for 
his virtue places him upon a height above their 
shot ; and what calumnies or offences are inten- 
ded for him, do but like the vapours and fogs 
that rise from the earth, not reach the heaven, 
but fall back in storms and thunder upon the 
place from which they were sent. Injuries may 
strike his buckler, but cannot wound himself, 
who is sensible of no wounds but of those his 
vices give him. And if a tyrant kill his body, he 
knows his immaterial soul cannot be stabbed, but 
is sure it will fly as high as the spheres, (nothing 
but that clog of earth hindering it to move up- 
ward to that its centre,) and that from thence he 
will with great Pompey (in Lucan), smile down, 



130 A MORAL PARADOX. 

when he shall see, with illuminate eyes, his own 
trunk to be so inconsiderable a piece of neglec- 
ted earth. And to conclude, the philosopher 
does in all his actions go to the straightest way, 
which is, because of that, the shortest, and there- 
fore the easiest. 

When I have constellate all these towering 
eulogies, which gratitude heaps upon its bene- 
factors, which foolish youths throw away upon 
their mistresses, and which flatterers buzz into 
the depraved ears of their patrons, — when I 
have impoverished invention, and emptied elo- 
quence of their most flowery ornaments, — when I 
shall have decocted the pains of a whole writing 
age into one panegyric, to bestow a compliment 
upon virtue for the ease it gives us, and the 
sweets of its tranquillity, I shall have spent my 
time better, than in serving the most wealthy or 
recreating vice ; and yet I shall oblige virtue by 
it less, than by acting the least part of what is 
reasonable, or gaining the soonest reclaimable 
of such as are vicious ; and therefore I shall leave 
off to write, that I may begin to act virtuously, 
though one of my employment may find a de- 
fence for writing moral philosophy, in the exam- 
ples of Cicero, Du Vaire, that famous French 
president, the Lord Verulam, and thousands of 
others. 



A MORAL PARADOX. 131 

I have (to deal ingenuously) written these two 
essays to serve my country, rather than my fame 
or humour ; and if they prove successful, heaven 
has nothing below itself, wherewith it can more 
bless my wishes : but if these succeed not, I 
know nothing else wherewith I would flatter my 
hopes ; and so whatever be the event of this un- 
dertaking, (as my resolutions stand now formed,) 
adieu for ever to writing. 



CONSOLATION AGAINST 
CALUMNIES: 

SHOWING HOW TO BEAR THEM EASILY AND 

MY LORD, 

1 HOUGH my friendship pay its incense no 
where with so much devotion, as when it bows to 
your merit; and though your charming letter 
had a bait hung at its each line, yet I am equally 
afraid and ashamed to return, in answer to either, 
that desired consolation, which may show very 
much vanity in me to undertake, and very little 
friendship to be able to perform. For either 
your misfortunes are not so pointed as ye repre- 
sent, and then I must show your weakness when 
I detect the defects of what conquers you ; or if 



* "Written in return to a Person of Honour, and at his 
desire subjoined to the foregoing Discourse, because of the 
contingency of the subjects. 



134 A CONSOLATION 

they have powers resembling the greatness of 
these complaints which ye form of them, then it 
will show too much disunion in our friendship 
(pardon the levelingness of that word, seeing ye 
have authorized what it expresses) to be able to 
comfort you, when you are not able to comfort 
yourself; and. not to be discomposed by the same 
absences of spirit and courage that obliges you 
to crave that assistance, which my modesty or 
sympathy should make me to decline to offer. 
Yet seeing ye possibly crave this, to try rather 
my obedience than to supply your necessities ; 
I will expose my own real defects, to help these 
imaginary ones in you : and this being the last 
thing I am ever to print, I shall think my repu- 
tation expires nobly, when it dies a martyr in 
your quarrel. 

The misfortune you complain of is, that your 
name is loaded with misreports ; and that your 
innocence doth not protect you against that in- 
justice : and albeit I am sorry to see so noble a 
name as your's so ill lodged, as in the venomous 
mouths of the indiscreet world ; yet I am glad 
to hear that your fortunes are so full, as that ye 
find no incommodity, but what is so foreign, 
and what may be so easily removed. 

Be pleased therefore to consider, that though 
ye imagine all the world talks of you, yet that is 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 135 

your and not their error ; for few have either 
time, convenience or humour, to inquire into, 
or hear such reports as these which trouble you : 
and I know by experience, that where men fall 
in your misfortunes, or under any affront, they 
conceive all they meet or know consider nothing 
so much as their case; whereas I myself have 
met such persons, without any lessening thoughts 
of them, and without any change in my humour 
towards them, besides what was wrought by a 
pity to see reasonable men slip into such an er- 
ror : it is the nearness of concern which induces 
men to believe this; and so they should conclude, 
that seeing others are not so concerned in these 
misinformations, they will not apprehend them 
with the same feelings. Every man imagines 
his own disease greatest, and admires why 
others are not sensible of his sufferings ; whilst 
these admire why he sees not his own to be 
much less than he imagines. And as self-love 
makes us imagine, that all the world hears of our 
advantages ; so it is an equal error to believe that 
all men are informed of our misfortunes ; and I 
have regretted to my friends (who of all others 
should have known best my misfortunes) what 
they knew not, but from my own apologies. 

Of these few who hear such reports, reason 
should oblige us to believe, that fewer believe 



136 A CONSOLATION 

them : for reason teaches us to presume men to 
be just; and really they so are, except they be 
biassed by prejudice or interest ; whereas if they 
be just, they will little credit such discourses ; it 
being so indispensable an essential of justice, not 
to condemn such as we have not heard to de- 
fend themselves against what they are accused 
of; that though God could not but know what 
Adam had done when he had sinned in Eden, 
yet He would not sentence him, till He cited 
him to appear in his own defence — Adam, where 
art thou ? And when the cries of Sodom's sins 
were become as great as the guilt was which oc- 
casioned them, yet God says, We will go down 
and see. 

It were likewise injustice to condemn men upon 
the depositions of such as shall have no warrant 
for what they talk, but common fame ; which is 
so infamous a witness, that it hath been convicted 
of a thousand million of gross lies, and stands 
condemned in the registers both of sacred and 
profane story. And so unworthy is the offspring 
of this common whore, that ye will scarce find 
one in an age who will own it for his ; and as if 
every man condemned it, even these who relate 
these discourses will still disown to be authors 
of them : and I may say of them, as the laws 
say of bastards, that patrem demonstrare nequeunt. 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 137 

Why then should we think that just men will 
believe, what even unjust men are ashamed to 
maintain ; and what is told with so much cau- 
tion and secrecy, as may convince such to whom 
it is told, that the relater dares not undergo the 
trial ? The other warrants of their discourses 
are the testimonies of such, as men may see by 
the feverish zeal of the relaters, that they are too 
much interested to be believed ; and when we 
hear such discourses, we should examine, why 
was the relater at the pains to disperse these in- 
formations ? Which if we do, we will find that 
interest or prejudice does prompt them; and so 
in believing these, we give the informer reason to 
laugh at our simplicity, in being so easily prompt 
by him (which may justly give him ground to 
prefer his wit to our's) ; and we become but the 
executioners of his revenge and malice : should 
not, and will not, reasonable men think, that 
these who are so officious as to report such dis- 
courses, wherein they are not interested, will be 
so unjust as to make, as well as tell such calum- 
nies ? And these who are busy-bodies in inter- 
esting themselves in such tattles, may be liars 
in forging what they want. None should be be- 
lieved, but such as are virtuous ; and such will 
never be authors of misreports, or curious to 
talk of other men's affairs ; for virtuous persons 



138 A CONSOLATION 

will be ashamed to have it thought, that they 
spend their time so meanly, as to have leisure 
to hear or inquire into what does not concern 
them: and as the law, so men should always sus- 
pect witnesses, who offer themselves to depose 
without being commanded or interrogate. Wise 
men will likewise examine, upon what ground 
the relater founds himself; and if they do not, 
they are unjust; or if they do, they will easily 
find that the weakest presumptions make the 
strongest of his arguments; and, in place of 
making you criminal, your accusers will thus 
make themselves ridiculous. Who will condemn 
upon presumptions, and upon such as are only 
presumptions to persons ignorant and malicious ? 
What may be, may not be ; and therefore it is 
bad logic to infer, that such an evil thing is done, 
because it may be so ; for the conclusion should 
follow the weakest proposition ; and, therefore, 
we should rather conclude, that such an evil is 
not done, because it may be that it is not done. 
No rational man should judge of any action, 
whereof he knows not the design of the actor ; 
for some actions are good or evil, according as 
the design is. St. Jerome went to taverns to 
observe and reform, which was a virtue in him, 
though it was a crime in others : and, therefore, 
seeing we know not other men's designs, we 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. tt9 

should not censure their actions. One circum- 
stance, also, will vary the case ; and, seeing few 
men know all circumstances of other men's ac- 
tions, it is rashness to censure what but may be 
vicious J and injustice to be rash in censuring, 
seeing what we censure may be virtuous. Ano- 
ther ground which persuades me that few believe 
what is disadvantageous to another man's honour, 
is, that though fame and life be but paralleled 
in law, yet in honour, fame is much dearer than 
life, because it lasts longer than life, and because 
life without it is a torment ; but it without life is 
so much a happiness, that more die for fame, 
than by courage. Seeing, then, we need not 
fear that just men will pronounce against our 
life without impregnable evidences, why should 
we fear that they will pronounce against our 
honour, upon foundless and slight misreports ? 
It is likewise men's own interest not to believe 
such discourses of others, lest they thereby esta- 
blish a precedent against themselves ; for will not 
they think that the next turn may be theirs, and 
that being mortal as you, they are liable to the 
same accidents; and that if such discourses should 
receive access, their innocence and pains are ea- 
sily disappointed ? And, therefore, I hope you 
will think, that common interest is a sufficient 
security for your fame amongst wise men ; and 



140 A CONSOLATION 

that upon that score, prudent men will not be- 
lieve such reports, as just men will not upon the 
former; it is also most ordinary to find, that 
such as have been once cheated, will be more 
cautious for the future ; brutes themselves being 
so wise, as to beware of that snare where they 
were once entrapped. It is then most probable, 
that seeing most men have once, and many too 
often been cheated with misreports, having been 
induced to wrong their friends hereby, and their 
relations ; that such therefore, even amongst 
these who can be unjust, yet will be so no more, 
and, that we will be secured by the experience, 
though not by their virtue. 

As to these who will talk to your disadvantage, 
I shall class them thus ; some will out of raillery, 
some will through misinformation, some by in- 
terest and malice. Those who talk out of raillery, 
deserve not your malice ; nor should their dis- 
courses fret you, seeing their humour is generally 
known to design rather jest than truth ; and so 
what they say, may divert others as a treat of 
wit, but cannot wrong you as a disobliging truth, 
no more than Virgil can be believed a fool, be- 
cause he is antic in burlesque verse ; and seeing 
these use you as they use their friends and 
themselves, ye should be no more angry than 
the king is, when he sees his face posted up for 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 141 

a sign to a country tavern. Scripture and devo- 
tion suffer with you on this account; and, because 
the finest things are most universally known, 
therefore, they are most ordinarily the subject 
of such entertainment; that being the object 
thought only worthy to rail at, which deserves 
not to be so used ; and men being used to make 
that appear ridiculous, which is not so in itself. 

These who talk to your prejudice through 
misinformation, receive but so slight an impres- 
sion, as will make them speak but faintly, and as 
will not hinder them from being easily removed 
from their received intelligence ; and after they 
are reclaimed by your friends, or a ripened in- 
formation, they will judge it a duty to expiate 
their former error, by confessing to the world 
their former injustice ; so that by one of those 
penitents more will be regained, than can be de- 
bauched by twenty misinformers ; men being 
generally more inclined to believe such as have 
experienced both, than such as pretend only an 
acquaintance with one of the opposite sides. 

As to such who speak out of malice, they do 
either press their design with such vehemency, 
as they may easily be suspected; or else they 
overact themselves by telling so improbable un- 
truths, that they are easily discovered : few like- 
wise are unacquainted with the humour of such ; 



142 A CONSOLATION 

and God has in a manner put Cain's mark up- 
on them, that they may not be believed. Malice 
cannot conceal itself, no more than it can the 
faults of others ; and the authority of such is or- 
dinarily of so little advantage to the cause they 
manage, that it hangs contempt upon a report, 
that they spread it : and how soon it is known to 
have begun at them, it leaves off" to be either re- 
garded or believed. 

Those whom interest persuades to talk of you, 
as being rivals to either your fame or love, do 
soon discover themselves and their passion, and 
by that discovery they secure you ; for after that, 
the hearers consider more their interest, than 
your crimes ; and in place of hating you, because 
of that alleged guilt, they pity and favour you, 
as a person who is so persecuted. Others do 
feed such misreport, not because they rival you, 
but because they would have you to rival them ; 
designing to have you loaded with the like guilt 
with which themselves stand charged ; and ex- 
pecting either to divert thereby the public noise, 
and make you the seat of that war ; or hoping 
to lessen their own guilt by sharing it with you ; 
these you should pardon, even as we pardon 
those who grip us when they are like to drown ; 
neither need ye fear such informers, seeing their 
interest is known ; and, therefore, none will be- 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. H3 

lieve them but such who are simple ; as that their 
belief is not worthy your pains or anger. 

Having thus cleared off many of those, whom 
your Lordship suspected as enemies, my next 
chapter shall be to comfort you against what im- 
pression those who remain can leave on you. In 
pursuance whereof, my first conclusion shall be, 
that nothing can be arbiter of your fate, but 
what hath power to make you happy as well as 
miserable ; by the application whereof, and of 
the rule of contraries, pardon me to assure you, 
that except ye thought the rabble might have 
made you happy, making you great or famous, 
ye had never feared nor courted their suffrage ; 
and seeing they are so miserable and inconstant 
a crew, what an empty and unfixed happiness 
must that be which ye expected ? The way, then, 
not to value common reports, is, not to value 
what favours the multitude can do you; that hap- 
piness which ye pursue amongst them, your own 
breast, and it only, can bestow : and as nothing 
that is not spiritual can make your spirit happy, 
so nothing can wound a spirit, that is nothing 
else but breath and air ; and I assure you, that 
these detract too much from the nobleness of 
man's soul, who imagine, that there is any thing 
else under the sun, whereupon his happiness or 
unhappiness doth depend ; for all exterior enjoy- 



144 A CONSOLATION 

merits do not otherwise enrich or impoverish it, 
than these rivulets which disgorge themselves 
into that bason of the ocean, do by their access 
or recess fill or empty its still equal waters. 
How can man be said to be lord of all the crea- 
tion, if his happiness does depend upon riches, 
territories, or any thing without him ? And, 
therefore, it was nobly concluded by Epictetus, 
That what is without us, and does not depend 
upon our choice, should not affect us. 

And, therefore, seeing reports cannot reach 
us, they should not grieve us ; unjust calumnies 
fall no otherwise upon a wise man, than hail up- 
on a strong house, whose fall causeth greater 
noise than prejudice. It is true, that these may 
hinder us from being preferred, but a virtuous 
person knows that his happiness lies not in pre- 
ferment, and so he values no more what can ob- 
struct that, than a covetous man does the loss of 
what may promote his knowledge ; or the amo- 
rous what cannot disappoint his love. A virtu- 
ous man may by want of preferment, be stopped 
from doing what good the diffusiveness of his 
noble humour would stretch towards others ; but 
his country is only a loser in this, and not he, 
for he pleases himself in the doing what good is 
within his present reach, and in being willing to 
do more, if occasion offer. 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 145 

I confess that misreports do sometimes grieve 
our spirits ; but it is our fancy, and not those, 
who have that ascendant over us; as is clear 
from this, that the same words spoke by a friend 
or fool, will not trouble us, which would enrage 
us if they slipt from any other person ; and till 
we know what is spoke of us, what is spoken 
does not trouble us ; which shows that not our 
enemies, but we wound ourselves: and seeing 
they never trouble us, but when, and at what 
proportion we do value them ; it is clear that not 
these, but our own reflections do grieve us. For 
if these grieved us, the measures of our grief 
would be ruled by any thing in us ; and all af- 
fronts and injuries should be to all equally dis- 
quieting, whereas now they yield to our humours; 
nor is a jovial, serene spirit, troubled like a me- 
lancholian, whose humour gives much of that 
black tincture to our crosses which so affright 
us. The way then to assure ourselves against 
misreports, is, not by informing all that great 
mass of our acquaintances, or by shunning what 
displeases others ; (for what will persuade them 
that they have a right to judge us) ; but the 
nearer cut is to tame our own affections, and 
bring them so under rod to our reason, that no- 
thing may offend us, but what offends it ; even 
as the way to preserve a body from diseases, is 

T 



146 A CONSOLATION 

to purge away these noxious humours which 
corrupt the best of aliments. 

Let us consider that men are either just, or 
unjust; if just, we need not fear their reproaches, 
for they never reproach innocency, and we should 
not fear to have our guilt reproached ; if unjust, 
we should not fret, because it is natural to them 
to reproach even the innocent ; and we have as 
just reason to think ourselves unhappy because 
dogs bark at us, or the winds and storms stop 
our journeys. This requires submission, but not 
grief; and is a misfortune to them, but not to us. 
And, as we should conform ourselves to the laws 
of the place where we live ; so seeing the decrees 
of providence have appointed the wicked to per- 
secute the just, it is reason to obey, not only be- 
cause we cannot help it, but because our Maker 
hath commanded it. Such as calumniate us, do, 
in so doing, show either ignorance or malice; 
and that being the worst of ills, they prejudge 
themselves more than us, and we have our re- 
venge in their offence. Fear not that their ma- 
lice will be constant if it be vigorous, for it must 
want in length what it grows to in height, and 
some fresh object will divert them from toothing 
upon you; or, at least, their natural inconstancy 
will make them stagger from what they are at ; 
and they will sooner fix no where, than fix long 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 14? 

any where; and, like a swing, they will probably 
run as far in the other extreme of admiring you$ 
as they did to that of speaking to your prejudice, 
and, as those upon whom the plague breaks need 
never fear a relapse, so your surmounting this* 
report will secure you against all future invasions. 

Men should do generous things, not for es- 
teem, but for virtue ; and, I may say, they are 
then most generous, when they meet not with 
applause ; for then they make the world their 
debtors, but when the world applauds them they 
pay them : and, whereas, they use the world in 
the one case as a prince does his subjects ; the 
world uses them in the other case, as a man doth 
his merchant or servant. 

Nothing that is not in our power should grieve 
us, and so it holds truer in philosophy than po- 
licy, that quisquis est faber sua for tuna: ; a wise 
man's inclinations are his stars ; and nothing can 
make him unhappy, but what can pollute these. 
Seeing, then, we are not answerable for other 
men's follies, why should their misreports (which 
are the chiefest of these) trouble us ? And, if it 
be made arbitrary to them to grieve us, what a 
precarious happiness is ours, which is subject to 
the caprice of such as are capricious, ignorant, 
and malicious ; to escape one of which three, is 
as impossible as to please them all. No man is 



148 A CONSOLATION 

worsted in his esteem, because another commits 
a fault ; why then should I be grieved as if I 
were guilty, because another man is so guilty as 
to calumniate me ? And it is too much compas- 
sion in me to be sorry for him who wrongs me. 
There is no man so foolish, as to pursue a 
prize not worthy of his pains ; or to grapple with 
one who is not worthy to be defeated. Consider 
then, that your adversaries acknowledge, that 
they fear your worth when they endeavour to 
lessen it by calumny ; knowing, that they dare 
not enter the lists with you upon equal terms ; 
and therefore they call the world, by this com- 
mon Fame, to their assistance ; which imports, 
that nothing less than a multitude can overcome 
so heroic a spirit. No place is undermined, but 
what is too strong for the assilant's open force ; 
and no man was ever painfully maligned, but 
such as were of so noble an humour, that nothing 
but malice joined with pains could ruin. Level- 
ling is the natural effect of man's pride ; and as 
no great soul will descend to consider his in- 
feriors, so such as fate has placed below you, 
do naturally design either to rise to your height, 
or to pull you down to their own stature : and 
hence it is, that your endowments making the 
first unpracticable, self-interest makes the se- 
cond necessary : and the liberty of repining is 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 149 

a charitable allowance, which should be indulged 
to those, to whom providence having denied 
what we possess, we should, in recompense of 
that partage, suffer some expressions from them; 
which, when granted, does noways make up that 
loss. The consideration whereof made that ge- 
nerous prince, Henry the Fourth of France, say, 
when he heard that his subjects talked of him 
with more liberty than justice ; that he could not 
but pardon them, seeing they had nothing else 
to recompense their not being kings of France. 
It were injustice in you to desire both the price, 
and the thing whereof ye have the price : so 
that, seeing ye possess that happiness which de- 
serves public Envy, it were unjust that ye should 
not suffer it, and unmerciful that ye should not 
suffer a word to pass with the losers. 

Consider, likewise, that all mankind is bom 
to misery, that is a law, not a punishment ; and 
envy is too common to be a misfortune : who 
escapes it in some measure, but such as never 
attempt any thing that was worthy of considera- 
tion ? And who thinks death a misfortune, since 
all must submit to it ? So that I may say to your 
Lordship, That nothing can cure this better, 
than to wear about your arm the names of three 
persons, who have passed through this valley of 
tears, without being soiled by some drops of ca- 



150 A CONSOLATION 

lumny ; and to find these three will be as hard 
as to find the philosopher's stone. Men should 
not repine, then, because they are pursued by 
some trouble ; but they should consider, whether 
their trouble be greater than that of other men : 
and by this rule we will find, that they escape 
easily to whose share of this general taxation, 
nothing falls but misreports. For such as lie 
entombed in prison, or are starved in poverty, 
to be relieved, and which is less, the ambitious 
for preferment, or the vindictive for satisfying 
his revenge, would allow the world to talk of 
them at their own rates : so that your torment is 
but their choice ; and ye do at the same altars 
complain of what they would beg from them. 

No merchant esteems himself miserable, be- 
cause he owes some debt ; but he compares his 
debt and credit, and is satisfied, if more be ow- 
ing to him than he owes to others. Do then, 
my Lord, consider what advantage ye possess ; 
and think not that providence deals churlishly 
with you, when ye find that even malice must 
find more things to admire in you, than it can 
find to carp at ; for to have but one trouble is a 
happiness, seeing if ye wanted all, ye would be 
a god ; and it is sufficient happiness to possess 
that quiet, which differs but by one remove from 
His. Number your friends, and I am confident 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 151 

ye will find these to surpass the number of such 
as dare say they are your enemies : but though 
they were fewer than your enemies, yet be not 
so unjust to your friends, as to think that one 
friend is not worth a thousand enemies. Wise 
men number not, but ponder vices ; but ye may 
securely do both. Will not a courtier value the 
opinion of his prince, and a lover the esteem of 
his mistress, above all the suffrages of all the 
remnant of mankind ? And should not a virtu- 
ous person content himself with the approbation 
of God Almighty ? and which is next, with the 
esteem of a friend, whose knowledge and virtue 
makes him all these to such as rightly rate 
friendship. 

—Sat, amico te rnihi felix. 

His friendship is a constant purchase, but the 
multitude's applause is uncertain and painful ; 
and these should rather be laughed at who court 
it, than they who want it. 

Consider seriously, whether it be not more 
easy and pleasant to be enjoying yourselves with 
a generous friend, than by running up and down 
the world, gaining such as serve for nothing, but 
to say, You are a brave gentleman ; which, if it 
were a fine thing, they would not have it to be- 
stow : for it is not reasonable to think that pro- 



152 A CONSOLATION 

vidence would deposite fine things in such hands; 
and it choses its servants ill, if these be its stew- 
ards. 

I having, then, spoken formerly to you as a 
philosopher, let me use the style of a gentleman ; 
and in that tell you, That the world hath no 
right to judge you ; you are a peer, and should 
not be judged by commons : laugh at them when 
they usurp, and let not your melancholy be the 
executioner of their sentence. It is alleged, 
that no beast dares pursue a man, if he holds 
his face undauntedly to it; these pursue not 
men, but cowards ; and the rabble knows not 
when ye err, but because ye blush. Do not 
then by your anxiety wrong innocency, and 
establish not a preparative by your yielding, 
whereby other virtuous persons may be op- 
pressed ; but be so charitable even to these un- 
just creatures who calumniate you, as to reclaim 
them from that humour, by laughing them out 
of it ; for I assure you, they will use you as men 
do children, who continue to hold out their fin- 
gers to them, when they find it vexes them. No 
man will lose his pains ; and upon this account 
ye will find, that seeing men calumniate you 
because they think to vex you, they will give 
themselves no longer that trouble, than they 
find they are able to give it you. 



AGAINST CALUMNIES. 153 

The example of these Bethshemites, who fell 
the sacrifice of their own sin, for prying into the 
bosom of the ark, forbids my eyes to be so sacri- 
legious, as to look inwardly into the designs of 
God Almighty, (whereof it was but a type,) in 
raising that dust wherewith your name seems to 
be at present somewhat sullied : and seeing it is 
unjust to judge of these men's actions, with 
whose designs we are not too intimate, it were 
unmannerly to repine at God's dispensations, 
whose actions are fitted more for our wonder 
than our inquiry. But yet I may at a pious 
distance judge, that providence hath designed 
these reports rather for trophies, than trials to 
your courage ; intending in your case to teach 
the world, that it is as easy for a generous soul 
to conquer, as to complain of calumnies : and so 
I hope your repute shall rise more glorious after 
this resurrection. Do, then, my Lord, retire 
from under the empire of Fame, to the sanc- 
tuary of friendship ; where generous souls, by 
mingling together, become themselves greater. 
And from that secure post, consider how the 
happy angels admire to see us, who are designed 
to be sharers of their happiness, so foolish as to 
be vain of fame, or vexed when we want it; see- 
ing they possess those joys for which we pray, 
and yet value not a far more noble fame than 



154 A CONSOLATION, &c. 

that after which we pant. Ye who are innocent, 
and may adore your Maker, which completes 
the pleasures of these blessed spirits : and what 
can be wanting to one who possesses so much ? 
Consider, likewise, how these hummings, and 
this noise of us poor mortals, outlive not the 
present age : for who knows what was said of the 
noblest ladies who lived in Queen Elizabeth's 
court, much less in the country during her reign ? 
And history scorns to preserve such ridiculous 
fopperies, as have no surer foundations than ru- 
mour or malice : but though it did, yet a little 
time shall consume us and them. And there- 
fore I shall finish this letter, as Virgil doth his 
reflection, upon the battles, toils, and noise of 
the bees : 

Hi motus animorum, atqiie hoec certamina tanta* 
Pulveris exiqui jactu, compressa quiescunt. 



>pmm*n 



AUTHOR'S POETICAL TALENTS. 



A PARAPHRASE ON THE CIV. PSALM. 

From humble heart, thy lofty praise I'll sing ; 

By love my Father, and by pow'r my King. 

Thy powerful hands the heav'nly reins do hold, 

And glory shades thee, with its wings of gold, 

Dark'ned to mortals by that dazzling light, 

Which, as a garment, hides thee from our sight. 

Thou the vast heavens spreads for thy stately tent, 

And the pure streams, above the firmament 

Bow'd by thy pow'r, in crystal arches stand ; 

Thou bends to vaults the heavens, by thy strong hand, 



156 A PARAPHRASE 

Emboss'd by stars, gilded by flaming light, 
They magnify thy pow'r, and charm our sight. 
Swift, like our thoughts, or light, thy chariots fly, 
And find glad passage through the yielding sky. 
By its own weight, the earth hangs pois'd in air, 
An equal instance of thy pow'r and care : 
To wash 't from sins, thou did'st in seas it drown, 
The seas, as vales, did its high mountains crown : 
But when thy thund'ring voice began to roar, 
The trembling floods soon shrunk within their shore : 
Hills rais'd their heads, the valleys humbly sunk : 
The thirsty sun, its floods in vapours drunk : 
And now these seas, gather'd in heaps, must stand, 
Press'd in by the strong bars of thy command : 
Though their hoarse waves beat the complaining shore, 
Yet they thy marches dare transgress no more. 
The filt'ring hills suck waters from the plain, 
Which purg'd from salt, the springs restore again : 
To these high tops, they climb by secret veins, 
And murmuring tumble on the longing plains ; 
Fatt'ning, in gratitude, the yielding ground, 
Through which their gentle streams a passage found : 
These are the source of health, and balm of youth, 
Where beasts may cool their heat, and quench their 
drowth : 



ON PSALM CIV. 15? 

The trees suck growth, and greenness from these floods. 
And mix their well busk'd branches with the clouds. 
Thou decks and baths the hills with pearly dew, 
By which their age and colour they renew. 
The tow'ring clouds are sifted into rain, 
And drop in life, and raise the buried grain. 
By thy strange art, the dull earth's formless mass, 
Starts up for men in bread, for beasts in grass ; 
Rich wine, which often elevates men's souls, 
Cheers their sunk hearts, and all their cares controls. 
The swimming oil, which makes the face to shine, 
And checks the vapours of inspiring wine. 
A crown for Lebanon tall cedars make, 
Whence houses men, there birds their nests do take. 
In firs amongst the clouds, the storks do breed, 
And their desires bound not their craving need. 
For fearful deer, the desert hills are made, 
Who their swift heels trust more than armed head. 
Thou rocks for trembling conies dost provide, 
And the wild goats in wilder hills abide. 
With borrowed light thou variously dost fill 
The low'ring moon, in changing constant still. 
Thou cloth'st the flaming sun with massy light, 
Whose rays confound, ev'n while they charm our sight : 
Thou to his winged haste points out the way, 
And makes him mark the year, and mark the day : 



158 A PARAPHRASE 

To his drown'd beams, succeeds the silent night. 
Which spreads its veil, where'er he sows his light. 
Then beasts which were o'eraw'd by light and men, 
Start from thick wood, and creep from silent den ; 
With starved voice, from heaven their food they crave, 
(Juster than men) no more than they should have. 
But when the sun rekindles his new fire, 
Men take the fields, and beasts to caves retire. 
And till the night of new the heavens invade, 
Some plough the ground, and some in cities trade : 
Thus thou thy power and goodness dost apply 
To all our wants and needs, commodiously. 
Nor is 't to earth alone that thou art kind ; 
The boundless seas, thy boundless favours find ; 
Whose moisture is soon shap'd in any forms, 
And breeds strange monsters, terrible as storms. 
There the stout ships which dare control the wind, 
In their own strength anchors and harbours find. 
There whales, those hills of fish, vast rainbows show'r 
From their large nostrils ; there they play and low'r 
On the smooth surface of that watery-plain, 
That polish'd marble of the glassy main. 
Thus from thy open hands, large plenty's sent, 
Men's wishes they exceed, and hopes prevent ; 
With trembling sobs, thou seals their parting breath, 
To flying dust, they're crumbled down by death. 



ON PSALM CIV. 159 

That earth which thou did'st fix'dly make to stand, 

Trembles, when touch'd by thy Almighty Hand. 

The lofty hills for fear do nod and quake ; 

The rowling clouds of smoke thou dost them shake. 

While life's kind flame within this lantern burns, 

Blood goes by arters, and by veins returns ; 

The strength thou giv'st, I'll in thy praises spend, 

And here begin what there shall never end. 

In thy sweet law some of these joys I taste, 

On which the ravish'd angels ever feast. 

My soaring thoughts reach here vast heavens of bliss, 

And sweetly lose themselves in this abyss. 

But sinners shall for ever ruin'd be : 

Oh ! what a curse not to be lov'd by Thee. 

To Thee, the incense of our praise we'll bring : 

We'll love our Father, and adore our King. 



FINIS. 



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